Prince

Prince is to give away his new 10-track CD "Planet Earth" album for free with a British tabloid newspaper before its official launch, which is upsetting music retailers.

The free CD will be included with an upcoming Mail on Sunday. The album is scheduled to go on sale July 24.  No other artist is known to give any their brand new CD away for free.

Paul Quirk, co-chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association, doesn't like what Prince is doing.  According to Quirk, "The Artist formerly known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Store...It is an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career. It is yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music."

Prince has signed a global distribution and marketing deal with Columbia, a unit of Sony BMG, but the UK arm of the business has pulled out of the distribution agreement.

HMV Chief Executive Simon Fox told reporters following the music and books retailer's annual results he thought it would be "absolutely nuts" to give the album away for free before its commercial release. HMV saw its profit more than halve as it battled cut-price supermarket and online sales. Prince - ''Guitar'' (Full Version)