Remember when MTV used to play music videos on television? Remember when YouTube was like the only place to watch music videos online? Remember when Prince loved his fans? Well the times they have achanged and music on Music Television is sorely lacking, YouTube is hardly the only online streaming game in town and Prince's fans are no longer feeling the love where his litigious, iron-fist Internet policies are concerned. But a new day has dawned and the change we need seems to be upon us, my friends.

Earlier this week MTV launched a new website, MTV Music, that features nothing but music videos and with its HD-quality streaming, community features, clean user-friendly player and ability to embed the clips on outside websites, they are giving behemoth YouTube some serious competition. And what does Prince have to do with this, you may wonder? Well, as of today, there are 48--yes, FORTY EIGHT!--Prince videos available for viewing on MTV Music. All the clips are high quality and ready to be added to other sites with a quick cut-and-paste of the code. Although not a complete collection of Prince videos or performances--where is anything pre-"1999" or any of his appearances on the VMA's, for example?--what is here is an impressive cross section from his storied career.

I don't know how MTV Music pulled this off, how much they paid Warner Brothers to make this happen nor how they made Prince agree to this, but this is a great thing for the man's fans to now be able to find his videos in one place without digging deep in the crack of the Internet. Although I'm not going to hold my breath that any of these videos will remain online for any length of time given Prince's freedom to change his mind and his i-mafia's online presence, I'm going to enjoy this trip into His Majesty's video vault while I can. Big thanks to Jay Smooth for the heads up on this pot o' purple gold via Twitter last night.

Now put your work to the side (like you were doing it anyway) and enjoy the 17-minute live version of "I Would Die 4 U"/"Baby I'm  A Star" from the Purple Rain tour below. Heaven must be like this.