Has hired Web Sheriff to go after YouTube, eBay, and The Pirate Bay for allegedly profiting from copyright violations of his work.
All is not well in "3121 land" with rock star Prince, or the artist formerly know as such, launching a multi-pronged legal campaign against YouTube, eBay, and The Pirate Bay for allegedly encouraging copyright violations of his work. Prince has hired UK-based company Web Sheriff, which specializes in policing the internet and going after people responsible for copyright violations, to carry out the campaign.
According to John Giacobbi, president of Web Sheriff, "In the past couple of weeks, we have removed about 2,000 infringing clips from YouTube. We get them down and the next day, there are 100 or 200 more. Their business model is built on making money off other people’s creative work," he continued.
"Their business model is built on making money off other people’s creative work," Giacobbi said. He told Reuters that Web Sheriff has also removed about 300 seemingly benign items bearing Prince’s likeness, such as mugs and keychains, from eBay.
"Very few artists have ever taken this kind of action over their rights," a spokesperson for the artist said. "Yet Prince has shown time and time again he is ready to challenge the system in new ways to put artists and music first."
And Prince says there’s no excuse for these sites not to crack down on the copyright-violating content that inevitably makes its way online through one channel or another.
"YouTube, [eBay and Pirate Bay] are clearly able [to] filter porn and pedophile material but appear to choose not to filter out the unauthorized music and film content which is core to their business success," the statement from Prince’s rep continued. "Prince strongly believes artists, as the creators and owners of their music, need to reclaim their art."
"Prince has always been independently minded, going back to the row over his own name," Giacobbi also noted.
He continued:
It made him more savvy over protecting his own rights. But now we are very firmly in the digital age so online rights are very important. 99% of content on the internet will be unauthorised. It doesn’t matter if its Prince or David Beckham or Tom Cruise or whoever, every artist under the sun suffers from wholesale abuse on every level. Prince has decided enough is enough.
Maybe so, but he’s definitely not as "savvy" as some think he is because why on earth would he want to target the very sites that get people interested in his work in the first place? Are we only allowed to watch Prince by either paying to see see him perform live in concert or via "authorized" clips on his site? This, in my opinion, would only serve to further isolate a music star who already has a knack for the eccentric(remember the whole symbol name change thing?).
As for eBay, they’re apparently being targeted because they have offered bootleg copies of his material for sale, a suit nobody can question the merits of. But, targeting YouTube and The Pirate Bay is just plain ignorant.
Targeting The Pirate Bay is a losing proposition since they only host non-copyrighted BitTorrent trackers, which is legal under Swedish law. He has reportedly hired a "top Swedish law firm" to carry out his legal battles against the site in that country, but again, unless they plan on somehow changing Swedish law they had better be prepared to lose.
In any case, it’s actually kind of sad to see Prince go off the deep end like this and go after YouTube and the Pirate Bay as though he can somehow turn back the clock and make it the year "1999" all over again. I mean what exactly does he expect to accomplish? If he thinks he can make more money if only The Pirate Bay and YouTube would remove all his material then maybe he should change his name to whatever the symbol for crazy is.
The Pirate Bay’s response so far in a blog posting is keeping with their traditional ambivalence about US-based artists and media conglomerates trying to dictate what people and organizations in other countries can and cannot do.
It reads:
Yesterday we got informed that The artist formerly known as The artist formerly known as Prince is going to sue us. Using web sheriff! Good news, maybe we get some updates for the legal threats page. And good luck Mr Son of a King, you probably just lost a lot of your fans.
So is Prince a "Son of a King," or just a "Son of a #$%@?" I’ll leave it for you to decide.
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Aww now that’s a real shame I’m a Prince fan and I love his videos and songs from those sites. Come on Prince I have enjoyed what you do and feel like I’m a part of your scene but I don’t want to be a part of anything that would harm any of your fans so I can’t stand with you on this one. I like Prince being crazy in a good way and having a symbol for a name it’s inspiring to me I mean I am Boomer The Dog and that’s more than just an alt name for web boards.
Also how are Prince and other artists not able to reclaim their art that doesn’t really make sense to me. Like you can’t make any more music if there are pirates? How can someone steal the soul of your music? Why would 30-year legends like this attack anyone he should be relaxin’ about now.
Too many questions from my dirty mind. I’m going to listen to my extended version of Computer Blue before Prince pulls all of his stuff and I start to feel bad about this..
Ironic that he embraced the internet as a distibution method for his music until he went broke now it is his enemy.
I tell you what “Prince” maybe you forgot from the 80’s but when you put out good music you make M-O-N-E-Y
im sure thats what this is all about a shameless money grab. and i thought the RIAA were shameless in their lawsuits. at least with them i can understand a little where they are coming from.
That is about as idiotic as metallica wanting to sue everyone years ago because their music ended up on some p2p sites.
They became irrevelant and so will Prince if he keeps up this stupidity.
you are in for a big challange prince.
look at http://thepiratebay.org/legal then look at the White Stripes / WEB SHERIFF part a lawsuit like the one you are proposing has been attempted with no success.
you see in sweden only art is considered copyrightable and swedes dont recognize music as art.
@Meyou123
I know…..he’s going to join the Lars Ulrich hall of stupidity.
Checking the piratebay site I ended up in a even more interesting story :
http://thepiratebay.org/blog/85
Really worth reading it.
isn’t this the same guy (i use the term ‘guy’ loosely here) who gave an album away free as a newspaper insert? why yes it is. here is the article with a great quote at the end of it.
Friday June 29 2007
The Guardian
The eagerly awaited new album by Prince is being launched as a free CD with a national Sunday newspaper in a move that has drawn widespread criticism from music retailers.
The Mail on Sunday revealed yesterday that the 10-track Planet Earth CD will be available with an “imminent” edition making it the first place in the world to get the album. Planet Earth will go on sale on July 24.
“It’s all about giving music for the masses and he believes in spreading the music he produces to as many people as possible” said Mail on Sunday managing director Stephen Miron.
COme on prince grow up. putting such material on youtube helps get you money and the name “prince” is just gay i mean its not as though he is royalty. hes just another person like all of us here
This is laughable at best. Isn’t Prince the same person that put his newest compact disc in newspapers to be distributed for free a few months ago much to the dismay of European music retailers. Get a life Prince
Prince perhaps if your music didn’t suck lemons like it apparently does now you’d make some money doing what you do.
The music industry’s business model is dissolving and all they can do is cry about it. Time to get your asses out there and do it like it was done before the recording industry existed. And that is ..perform on stage and sell your own damn cds without the help of record comapnies. Imagine that
If he sues us for getting things free he just needs to be reassured that no-one in their right mind would even steal his music. Alphabet Street was horrible and he sings like a girl.
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