Prince should be made an honorary paperboy. The rock star may not be selling any albums but he is still selling newspapers.

Prince elected to give away his new album '20TEN' in the UK in the Daily Mirror and Daily Record. The Mirror reports a 334,500 increase in circulation and Daily Record sold 45,000 copies this week.

If you believe the Prince spin doctors, then the album has become an instant collectors item. The reality is that most of the 2 million plus copies given away in the newspaper were probably thrown in the bin, with the rest of the newspaper insets.

Prince pulled the stunt as a protesting to iTunes but that ended up biting him on the bum when fans who grabbed a newspaper freebie rushed to add '20TEN' to bit torrent sites making it available to anyone in the world who cared to search for it.

It is not known what the Daily Mirror paid for the promotion. It is doubtful any of those additional 334,500 readers will return to the newspaper.