The Prince is dead, long live the Prince.

In the early 2000s a track by Prince called Musicology used to play on TV music channels. The video showed a kid discovering Prince’s music intercut with Prince playing a concert. A kid today wouldn't be able to find that video on YouTube. Or on Vimeo, or anywhere else for that matter.

The 57-year-old R&B singer, who died last night, was so fiercely protective of his music that in 1993 he changed his name to an unpronounceable “love symbol” during a contractual fight with Warner Bros.

The label wanted him to “release fewer CDs so he wouldn’t flood the market and they could better promote him. He couldn't get out of his contract, but he could change his name to an unpronounceable symbol, largely to mess with them,” Rolling Stone magazine reported, ranking it as the fourth boldest career move in rock history. He also started making appearances with 'slave' written across his face.

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During this time Prince came to be known as "the artist formerly known as Prince". In 2000 when his contract with Warner expired he went back to being ‘Prince’, and began a “a series of promiscuous relationships with various record labels (not to mention lawyers, one of whom says he cycled through them "like underwear”), according to Billboard.

But the internet was the new monster threatening his control over his tracks. Prince wouldn't have any of it, though. Not just his music videos, the artist wouldn't even let concert clips as short as six seconds go up.

The most famous case of his borderline manic need for control was when Prince had a woman sued for uploading a 29 second clip of her toddler dancing to his track Let’s Go Crazy. Then in 2014, he sued 22 Facebook users for linking to bootlegs of his recordings. That case was later withdrawn in the face of severe public backlash. Billboard reports, “For Prince's efforts, he got a "lifetime aggrievement award" from the Electronic Frontier Foundation when it decided to erect a Takedown Hall of Shame.”

For those who do want to remember him after his death last night, one video that is doing rounds more than the others is this rendition of The Beatles’s track While My Guitar Gently Weeps. The origins and veracity of the Clapton quote accompany it may be doubtful, but the intensely territorial musician’s talent with the guitar is undeniable.

And, as Prince takes centre stage at around the 3.20 mark, it becomes evident why he – or anyone else for that matter – would want to protect the fruits of a talent that was just so exceptional.