[NewsPoster]

The battle for musicians to receive payment for their music from streaming services has resulted in an unusual move by one artist. Prince has started to request that all streaming services pulls his back catalog of tracks from their collections, with Spotify being one of the first to remove the singer's music, though according to a report, the struggling Tidal will apparently continue streaming Prince's songs to subscribers.

According to Billboard, all streaming services have been handed pull requests, with Tidal being the exception. Spotify's artist page for the musician states "Prince's publisher has asked all streaming services to remove his catalog. We have cooperated with the request, and hope to bring his music back as soon as possible." The tracks have also been pulled from Rdio, with Deezer advising to TechCrunch that it too has received the request and is in the process of removing songs.

So far, it appears that Google has yet to receive a notification from Prince's publisher, with all tracks still playable. Apple Music does not include Prince songs for streaming at all. As for why Tidal seems to have escaped the notices, it may be down to an existing relationship between the artist and the service, with Tidal previously streaming the Rally 4 Peace concert in May.

While Prince has not given a direct statement about the removals, he has recently appeared on Twitter to comment about an article by The Daily Beast about the relationship between music artists, record labels, and streaming services. He also quotes himself from the article in a tweet, stating "Spotify is co-owned by the record labels, who hold 20 percent of the company's stocks," and "Essentially, streaming has offered labels the ability to pay themselves twice while reducing what is owed to artists, from pennies on the dollar to fractions of pennies on the dollar."

[azrich]

Is it fair to say that the artists need to negotiate better deals with their labels when it comes to streaming? I can see that being a relatively new way of distributing music and needing some negotiations because of it.

[Charles Martin]

Gosh if only there were some way to gather the artists together in a -- let's call it a union -- to negotiate better terms. Individually, only the very hottest and best-selling artists might hold any sway with record companies, but collectively ... oh wait gotta drop all this socialist talk ...

[climacs]

:-)

[mt11]

Who is this clown Prince?

[chucker]

Clown? He's standing up for other artists - maybe one day he'll be as famous as Taylor Swift (tic)

So this is how it feels when the doves cry.

[Flying Meat]

He might have to sell his little red corvette though, if it goes on too long.
If he's successful in this action, artists will no doubt party like it's 1999.