The artist known as Prince, but previously known as a symbol, before that Prince, but born Prince Roger Nelson, has withdrawn his music from the majority of streaming music sites, ostensibly in a “I’m a greedy rich musician” Taylor Swift style play.

According to reports, Prince’s music has been withdrawn from services from Spotify AG, and Rdio, Inc., but remain on both Tidal and Google’s Play Music service; the difference between the two groupings being that the latter do not provide a free streaming service.

News first came via Prince’s artist page on Spotify, which now reads that the musician’s “publisher has asked all streaming services to remove his catalog.”

Prince’s artist page at Rdio likewise has had all Prince music removed.

The act is not unprecedented for the artist, who has previously pulled his music clips from YouTube, and if you’ve somehow decided to sign up to Apple Music, Prince never agreed to be there in the first place.

Prince also recently tweeted a statement attacking Spotify, noting that the music industry was double-dipping through its 20 percent ownership of the company.

"Essentially, streaming has offered labels the ability to pay themselves twice while reducing what is owed to artists…

— Prince (@prince) June 25, 2015

Purple prick

It’s next to near impossible to feel any shred of sympathy for greedy, rich tools like Prince who remain stuck in the past when it comes to the distribution of music.

No one argues that musicians shouldn’t be compensated for their work, but this whole idea that an ad-supported free streaming service like that offered by Spotify as their base tier is ripping off artists and not paying them is complete and utter bullshit; Spotify pays artists on every song they play, it may not be as much on the free tier but here’s the thing: it’s a bloody lot more than they were getting paid than in the days before music streaming seriously took off and pirating music was the most popular form of music distribution online.

Would artists like Prince and Taylor Swift prefer that people didn’t adopt streaming music services and simply went back to pirating them?

The other consideration in the broader pay dispute over streaming services is that the very same artists continue to have their music played on radio, and the amount they are paid per play on radio comes to: $0.00.

How is the ad support version of Spotify any different from a commercial radio station, besides the fact that commercial music radio audiences are dropping like flies as they flock to streaming music services, and even online radio alternatives such as those provided by Pandora Media, Inc.

Perhaps you could have some more respect for the stance if Prince was consistent in how he applies  it….actually no, Prince is still a whiny, greedy prick either way.