Prince to Cease Releasing Recorded Music Due to Web Piracy + Hatred of Digital Sound

Thanks to the prevalence of digital music in 2011, Prince has told the UK paper The Guardian that he detests digital music so much that he'll probably stick to performing live instead of releasing recorded music.

"I personally can't stand digital music," Prince declared. "You're getting sound in bits. It affects a different place in your brain. When you play it back, you can't feel anything. We're analogue people, not digital."

The fact that digital music distorts the sound aside (at least according to Prince's opinion), he's also taking umbrage with the fact that there is no standard or solid regulation to music distributed via the Internet, where copyrighted material is often used sans artist permission. Given this fact, the Purple One will no longer record new music until the proper regulatory measures are put into place to protect his rights as an artist. Gasp! No new Prince music in the digital age? We hate to be the ones to break it to him, but we doubt things are going to change regarding the sound of digital music. However, his issues with copyright control are indeed legit.

Before you go writing Prince off as an old fuddy duddy, clinging to an outdated mode that is against the grain of the way things are now, know he further explained his point of view, saying, "We made money [online] before piracy was real crazy. Nobody's making money now except phone companies, Apple and Google. I'm supposed to go to the White House to talk about copyright protection. It's like the gold rush out there. Or a carjacking. There's no boundaries. I've been in meetings and they'll tell you, 'Prince, you don't understand, it's dog-eat-dog out there.' So I'll just hold off on recording."

So there you have it. A moratorium on recording from Prince. We guess we can continue to enjoy his classic material and go to see him live in order to get our fill of his Purpleness.

Watch Prince Perform on 'Lopez Tonight!'