His three biggest hits, "Purple Rain," ''Little Red Corvette," and "When Doves Cry" are now dominating the 7th, 9th, and 10th spots on iTunes' Top Songs chart. Additionally, four of his albums — "The Very Best of Prince," ''Purple Rain," ''The Hits / The B-Sides," and "1999" — jumped to 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 8th on iTunes' Top Albums chart, all within hours of his death.
You won’t find Prince’s music on streaming sites like Spotify and YouTube however, at least not with his approval. The one exception is Tidal, purportedly designed with the artist’s rights in mind.
Prince fought tirelessly for copyrights, and is viewed as a champion of artist’s rights, after spending much of his career fighting an exploitative record industry.
“We made money [online] before piracy was real crazy,” Prince told the Guardian in 2011. “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.”
“The first step I have taken towards the ultimate goal of emancipation from the chains that bind me to Warner Bros. was to change my name from Prince to [the love glyph],” Prince said, in a statement at the time. “Prince is the name that my Mother gave me at birth. Warner Bros. took the name, trademarked it, and used it as a marketing tool to promote all of the music that I wrote. The company owns the name Prince and all related music marketed under Prince. I became merely a pawn used to produced more money for Warner Bros.”
