Ease up. Sony is trying to prevent its own death.

Why shouldn't they, WH broke her contract by dying. Not like it wasn't self inflicted or anything.

As if this makes anything better..

1. kill artist
2. raise album prices
3. watch out for people pirating it in disgust
4. sue them all for a shit-ton of money
5. profit!

Seems like a solid plan to get out of a dire financial situation - well played Sony! ;)

Even the tree grows faster when it shades a fresh carcass.

What's so wrong about this? It's supply and demand. Should they be lowering the price? Keeping it the same? Lots of artists are worth more dead than alive. It's been this way for hundreds of years.

And seriously, you're going to pirate a dead-singers songs? Who out there is pirating Whitney Houston anyhow? Shouldn't they be pirating new games, and new albums? Dude, if someone never bought or hasn't already pirated Whitney, chances are her death is not going to bring the pirates about, that would imply that pirates have some kind of moral fiber.

More money for WH's estate. I doubt her family is complaining.

Just ensuring maximum effect. Shes still gone be dead either way, not like they were the ones who killed her, and people don't have to buy the albums. Plus they made like 500 million dollars from MJ's back catalouge when he died,.

The music industry trying to profit from an artists death? What a shock. While it is a little off to put the price up, at the same time why not? The people who are suddenly going to rush to buy the album aren't exactly going to be the massive fans of her who supported her and already own the material. They will be people who get reminded of her music because she just died.

Things like this always happen. This is far less worse than when music companies put out albums/material that was never meant to be released.

In some cases it's not too bad. With Otis Redding and Dock of the Bay for example the whole album had been recorded as an album before he died. So I think that's fine. There may have been a few small changes in production but he had recorded and album and was happy with it.

But then you look at something like Amy Winehouse with Lioness. Where the songs on it were never meant to be an album and where material the artist themself had declined to release have been included. In that case it clearly isn't about the artist's work and respecting them but about seeing how much money you can make from their death. The artist had no control over anything on the album at all and it's just disgusting. I actually rather disliked Amy Winehouse, but I felt sorry for her that her 'friends' and family had decided to release something she didn't want to release just to make money.

Tupac released twice as many albums after death than while alive. Most of those songs were fucking garbage too. Like, really really garbage.

welcome to the digital age