Prince Pulls Music From All Streaming Sites Except for Tidal

Although Prince was not one of the 16 acts who were identified as the “owners” of Tidal at its introduction in March, he has used it to showcase exclusive content such as the live stream of his Baltimore concert in May.

Prince has removed his music from all streaming platforms – except Jay Z’s Tidal.

The service’s page for Prince now lacks any of his music, instead posting the message: “Prince’s publisher has asked all streaming services to remove his catalog”.

The Prince anthology, which includes 20 singles and EPs, 24 albums and three versions of “When Doves Cry”, remains in Tidal with its 800,000 subscribers awaiting the service. Prince has a storied history with technology – five years ago, he twitter-and-facebook-privacy-is-unsustainable”>declared the Internet was “dead” – but he has been less vocal about the rationale behind his latest move.

Last year, he abruptly left social media, but recently returned to Twitter to promote his Hit and Run tour, announcing shows with little advance notice.

Despite that, he still is maintaining another online presence through his continued use of Soundcloud. At the same time, despite a few concerns among musicians and their advocates about the Apple plan, a new consensus has shaped up that says while we still need to get the details straight, steaming music is the future. For Google, playlists is an easier approach to free music than the ad-sponsored music streaming that Spotify offers. Prince’s music is also still on digital radio services such as Pandora and Songza, which operate on so-called compulsory licenses that make it tricky for artists to refuse to participate.

“I didn’t see that happening, perception-wise, when I put my music on Spotify“. However, you can’t access any old Prince material via this method. She took to Tumblr to challenge Apple Music for not paying artists for the first free trial months of a subscription. In total, Nielsen measured a 92 percent jump up to 135.2 billion streamed songs.