By Seth D. Olson
TicketNews.com
Super Bowl halftime sensation Prince doesn’t need your money. As a matter of fact, the purple one is reportedly giving away two million copies of his new album “Planet Earth” before you can even buy it on July 16. A deal has been secured with the British newspaper “The Mail on Sunday” to give away two million copies of the CD to its readers. Sony BMG, Prince’s distributor, is not pleased and has decided not to release the album in the U.K.
A Sony BMG representative issued a statement saying, “Before the deal was set in place, [Prince] had a number of other deals in place, including the deal to give away the album to people attending his shows at the O2 in London. At that time The Mail on Sunday deal was not something that we were aware of—that came to light a few days ago. With that in mind it, we decided it was ridiculous to have a UK deal when two million albums are going out free with papers. . .
“We don’t want to muck around our retail partners, so out of respect for them we’re not going to release the album over here,” the statement continued. “It doesn’t change the fact that we’re delighted to be working with him though and the global deal remains unaffected; this is a UK-only exemption.”
On May 31, 2007, the title and tentative release date of the new album, were revealed: Planet Earth will be released July 16, 2007. It has been reported that this album contains a much-anticipated reunion with Wendy and Lisa. The first single from the album, “Guitar”, was made available through a special partnership with Verizon.
On June 28, 2007, the UK national newspaper The Mail on Sunday revealed that it had made a deal to give Prince’s new album, Planet Earth, away for free with an “imminent” edition of the paper, making it the first place in the world to get the album.
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