The most recent Prince album I own is Musicology (which, incidentally, he gave away with a purchase of tickets to his Musicology tour).

I would have loved to get his last two albums for free, but I would never, ever buy a newspaper. So it looks like his move hurt UK fans in a position similar to mine, by actually INCREASING the real cost to his fans willing to buy it, by forcing them to subscribe to some limey tabloid buttrag or import the record at a huge premium. At the same time, I suspect it was a massively wasteful campaign, and that a huge fraction (majority?) of tabloid subscribers simply let the jewelcase-free, scratched up discs float around on the cradenza for a week, and them tossed them. It's an absolutely perverse manner of media distribution.

But, I guess Prince is Prince (is the Artist Formerly Known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince), so he can do whatever the fuck he wants. Budding artists making difficult economic decisions do not have the same luxuries.