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Prince declares the Internet ‘dead’

Prince, never a model of rational thought and probably richer than God anyway, totally declared the Internet “dead” in an interview published by a British newspaper on Monday. Like, "MTV" dead.
Image: Musician Prince accepts the Lifetime Achievement Award during the 2010 BET Awards
Prince accepts the Lifetime Achievement Award during the 2010 BET Awards, his wagging finger a ominous foreshadowing of how he'll judge the Internet in days to come. Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images
/ Source: msnbc.com

The Time is now my new favorite band.

I am totally listening to "House Quake" on YouTube.

I will no longer come to blows defending the 1989 "Batman" soundtrack ... you know, the one that came in that awesome tin can CD holder?

In fact, I’ll be selling my collector’s pressing later today to make ends meet — but not on eBay, apparently — now that the thing I write about for money is officially over.

Prince, never a model of rational thought and probably richer than God anyway, totally declared the Internet “dead” in an interview published by a British newspaper on Monday. Like, "MTV" dead.

"At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated," he told the Mirror — that’s the same U.K. paper that will offer his 27th LP "20TEN" free to readers later this year. "Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good."

Never mind that the indisputable musical genius passed over the logical “television,” and instead chose “a channel on television,” to make his analogy.

Prince sees big things ahead for daily newspapers. (The town crier was totally bell-ranting about this the other day! "HEAR YEE! HEAR YEE! THE INTERNET BE DEAD!") Prince launched 2007’s "Planet Earth" via the Mirror as well.

Either that or Prince is still pissed about that baby on YouTube dancing to his barely audible "Let's Go Crazy." YouTube yanked the video in 2007 after receiving a takedown notice from Universal Music Publishing Group, reportedly at the artist’s behest.

The kid’s mom turned to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the digital advocacy group called "Shenanigans!" over Universal’s misuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now that groundbreaking video is back on YouTube, where it cleared the way for all the "Single Ladies (Put A Ring on It)" babies of today. But it’s only fair to point out that according to Universal, that baby shouldn’t take it personally.

"Prince believes it is wrong for YouTube, or any user-generated site, to appropriate his music without his consent,” Universal said in a statement released to ABC News at the time of the story. "That position has nothing to do with any particular video that uses his songs. It's simply a matter of principle.”

Whatever, Crazy Dude.

"This guy scours the Internet,'' a source told ABC News. "He's really intense about this stuff."

Indeed, the same year as the baby video incident, Prince stated his intentions to sue YouTube and eBay because they "are clearly able (to) filter porn and pedophile material but appear to choose not to filter out the unauthorized music and film content which is core to their business success." Dang, priorities.

Also under fire that year from the Prince Industrial Complex: Three of the biggest Prince fan sites— you know, sites formed by and for Prince fans — for breach of copyright. His lawyers demanded the sites remove photographs, images, lyrics, album covers and anything associated with Prince’s likeness.

This is no doubt when Prince got his first inkling that things were over for the Internet — as far as he was concerned anyway.

If "Planet Earth" didn’t work in 2007, "20TEN" will no doubt show those illegal-downloading netizens not to swipe tracks from rock’s royalty. They’ll have to wait until one of their brethren fork over the 45p (almost 70 cents in Yank money) necessary to get their hands on the free-with-paper opus and rip it the old-fashioned way.

Way to somewhat slightly slow down the folks who were going to steal you record anyway, Prince.

But wait!

Perhaps we’re reading this all wrong. Perhaps this is just Prince trying to get around reality on a technicality again. The Internet is completely over, but the global system of interconnected computers formerly known as the Internet, which Prince totally plans to dominate, is fresher than ever!

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