Prince Sues Fans For $22 Million For Posting Links To Concert Videos
Last week Prince continued his career long litigious streak with a new attack on some of his biggest fans. A lawsuit filed in San Francisco court seeks to punish fans who found linked to old concert videos of Prince concerts and posted them on Facebook and blogs. The suit names 22 fans – 20 as yet unidentified – and asks for $1 million each or $22 million in damages.
The 21 page suit targets mostly Prince fan sites with names like Purple House, Purple Kiss and Funky Experience Four for sharing bootleg recordings. The lawsuit alleges that "constitute an interconnected network of bootleg distribution which is able to broadly disseminate unauthorised copies of Prince's musical compositions and live performances".
UPDATE: Prince Drops Lawsuit
On the unofficial Prince forum prince.org, fans reacted negatively:
Another lawsuit once again….?????
is this a joke, what a black day in Prince history.
Proven once again: Prince is an a*sehole.
Another reason for me to quit the Prince world, his new music sucks anyway.
Is Prince doing a tutorial on how to kill your own career. Suing your fans is real bright.
oh clever boy…and where does he think the average fan is going to get a million dollars! His legal team must be rolling about with sore sides thinking about the lovely fee.
Wow. I’m surprised a bit. I’m not a huge Prince fan, as a music fan, I appreciate him. HOWEVER, if you are not a super huge Prince fan you don’t realize what he DOES DO for his fans.
He is consistently throwing small and private events exclusive to fans. While small and private, they are somehow also accessible, not like the “small and private” events I can equate to another International Superstar where you’d have to make mid 6-figures to afford it.
Many of these events, I believe he used to do it once annually, WOULD TAKE PLACE IN HIS HOME! That’s right, he’d invite thousands of fans into his home to put on private shows in his living room, as if he were just home, by himself, practicing, VERY laid back atmosphere. I believe he had to stop doing it because fans had free reign and I think they started steeling stuff.
Stories like these are plentiful about him but you would need to be in his ‘inner circle’ to know it.
Now, suing fans for doing what everyone does in this day & age given the continued evolution of technology, is a bit odd, but it WASN’T odd when Metallica sued Napster and won. It is his intellectual property and he has every right to protect it. Will he win? Probably not, but he may just want to make a statement, or, for all we know, it is the same few offenders over and over who may be making money on it – via web advertising or eBay or otherwise. Stories like this can go deep.
Ok, off my soap box. I actually stole it from Prince’s house. (KIDDING!)
I would guess that in order to protect the copyrighted material that lays within the video, he set some sort of astronomical sum and is taking it to court in order to protect the rights. When you post a link to copyrighted material- it opens up a whole host of issues- if someone takes it from a 3rd party site such as Facebook is it violating laws? Its not simply cut and dry that he is being a prick- hes trying to keep control on who and what his work is used for and if you think he will be alone in this endeavor- you are nuts. You will see it over and over again as time and technology progress.