
The Legend of Prince’s Special Custom-Font Symbol Floppy Disks - tintinnabula
http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/04/princes-legendary-floppy-disk-symbol-font.html
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cs702
For those who don't know, Prince legally changed his name to a made-up
unpronounceable symbol in the early 90's to sidestep restrictions in the
contract he had signed with his record company, Warner, which at the time had
the rights to use the name "Prince" for music and merchandise.

After the legal name change, news outlets started calling him "the artist
formerly known as Prince." Meanwhile, Warner had no rights to the new,
unpronounceable name. Warner executives likely were not too happy about that,
but couldn't do anything about it.

In 2000, after the contract with Warner expired, Prince went back to using his
old name.

Source:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36107590](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36107590)

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svantana
Is the part about him _legally_ changing his name really true? All the sources
say so, but surely there are laws and regulations around name changes in the
US. I have a hard time imagining the IRS having him down as the symbol.

Also, changing your name can't be a legal way of getting out of contracts, can
it? If it is, then someone should let Ke$ha know...

~~~
toast0
Looking at the discography and discussion on the Wikipedia artivle, I don't
think the name change got him out of his contract. It seems that he had to
release a certain number of albums to finish his contract. I think by using
the symbol on those albums, he prevented Warner brothers from having rights to
use his name in connection with it. He probably negotiated his next contract a
bit differently.

~~~
bitwize
What he did was start turning the crank, churning out five albums in three
years, since the contract stipulates a certain number of albums to be
produced. Which leads one to wonder if he didn't want the Prince "branding"
applied to this work; maybe he thought the label was meddling too much and it
wasn't really his work?

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CapitalistCartr
He also performed with "Slave" painted across his face/chest. He _REALLY_
didn't like his treatment by the studio.

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galago
Ha! You type "P" for the symbol-- so he doesn't have his own Unicode
codepoint?

The font may have an ambiguous license, but it appears that it was _meant_ to
be widely distributed to promote Prince. Is it available anywhere? I could
make my own, but that wouldn't be the same.

~~~
GauntletWizard
No, he doesn't, and it's a crying shame. Contact your local Unicode consortium
representative - If and 𒀽 deserve Unicode codepoints, the artist formerly
known as Prince surely does too.

~~~
jloughry
To propose this character to the UTC (Unicode Technical Committee) you'll need
to include as many examples as possible showing the symbol used in running
text. Physical objects and logos won't do; you need to show historical use of
the symbol in running text (newspaper or magazine articles, books, liner
notes, et cetera). Find examples, and we could make the proposal.

We've done it before on HN:

[https://github.com/jloughry/Unicode/#readme](https://github.com/jloughry/Unicode/#readme)

~~~
rspeer
Unicode tends to resist adding symbols for specific people, companies, or
brands. They'll say to put it in the private use area.

~~~
jloughry
You're right, and IIRC this symbol has been proposed before unsuccessfully.
But recent events have called to attention the backstory behind Prince's
symbol---how it was created for use as a _tool_ to modify an unfair contract,
and how that successful hack opened up the recording industry for artists---
many articles were printed about it at the time (most of them missing the
point), a few books were written since, lots more articles were published
about it last week, and likely more books about Prince are being written now.

A code point is needed for Prince's symbol now. It's no longer merely pop
culture but history and law.

~~~
rspeer
Eh. As much as we like Prince, his symbol is still a brand, and Unicode should
not be a permanent memorial to brands.

And here's why excluding people is nice: I'd say there's history involved in
the fact that the North Korean encoding (KPS 9566) has codepoints for special
decorative characters for writing "Kim Jong-Il", but Unicode isn't putting
those in either.

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sampo
_After all, could any other artist convince a major music publication to
integrate a custom font?

“How many people can just say ‘Hey, I’m changing my name to this symbol so can
you use it from now on?’ and everyone’s like ‘Alright. Okay. No questions
asked. You’re Prince! We’ll do it!’ It was kind of funny to me.”_

Then again, music journalism is probably a business where they are accustomed
to seeing all kinds of diva behavior.

