We lost a legend yesterday after having learned of Prince’s early passing. A lot of people honored him by listening to his music. However, his death also triggered thousands of illegal downloads of his music, something he avidly fought against.
I’m sure there is still a weird feeling sitting in all of us having discovered Prince passed away in his home recording studio in Paisley Park, last morning. His death was commemorated worldwide as national landmarks were lit up purple and people played his music in his honor.
However, there were plenty who also felt the need to honor the purple icon but in ways I doubt he would approve.
Within hours of Prince’s death an estimated 100,000 people downloaded Prince torrents. KickassTorrents being the most visited torrent site, holds Prince on the top five most-shared music files.
While many downloaders possibly saw no harm in their activities, what they probably didn’t know is Prince fought passionately against the illegal online piracy of artist’s music.
Prince was noted not only for protecting his work from pirates, but from labels and other profiteers. This is why its pretty difficult to find tracks of Prince on platforms like Youtube and Spotify.
Prince was also one of the first to fight against Pirate Bay in a lawsuit nearly a decade ago.
So if you’re among the billions who honored his death by posting RIP on social media but are among the thousands who decided to illegally download his work… do you truly honor him?
If you want to show your love to Prince, or any artist for that matter. You support them by buying their work.
Source: TorrentFreak
