Courtesy of the MoKelly Report

On first glance I ignored all of the hubbub going on with Prince. It just seems so silly for an artist not to want to get paid for his music online, especially since more and more physical retailers are closing down their locations and moving to a mobile/online storefront. (See Prince’s ongoing battle with Google, YouTube and eBay here: Mashable.com).

In fact, I’ve heard that Best Buy won’t even stock an album if you as the distributor can’t guarantee at least 10,000 albums sold nationwide. With those kinds of numbers, it’s no wonder that so many indie and major label artists are turning to online distribution as the primary way to get their albums to fans.

However, now that I’ve read Prince’s posturing about the fact that “The Internet’s completely over,” I’m not entirely sure that 1999 should’ve ever been the anthem to usher in a new millennium dedicated to the spread of technology. Prince goes on to say, “I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it, and then they get angry when they can’t get it….All these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you” (Daily Mirror‘s Peter Willis).

Instead of embracing the forward movement of technology, Prince is giving away a CD in every Mirror newspaper, according to Billboard Magazine. In fact, Prince is giving away 20TEN to several European magazines and newspapers. (Can you say two dying formats??) Maybe it would have been a cooler promotion if he had partnered with the New York Times digital distribution model to giveaway mp3s on the Kindle or other eReader.

Do you think Prince is going to go the way of the dodo by not embracing the internet, or do you think he’s that much smarter for not submitting to the demands of online distributors?