United States pop star Prince plans to sue YouTube and some other major Web sites for unauthorized use of his music in a bid to "reclaim his art on the Internet." Is this what it feels like, when doves cry?
reports that the man behind such hit songs as "Purple Rain," "1999" and "When Doves Cry" said on Thursday that YouTube could not argue that it had no control over which videos users posted on its site.
"YouTube ... 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," a statement released on his behalf said.
Prince also plans legal action against online auctioneer giant eBay and Hollywood thorn in the side Pirate Bay, who are often accused by Hollywood and the music industry as being a major source of music and film piracy.
This is just the latest salvo in a war to get control over content in an age where file sharing, mobile phones and video sites make enforcing copyright extremely hard.
It is however rare for an individual artist like Prince to take on popular Web sites, because some artists actually encourage online file sharing to create a fan base and buzz.
"Prince strongly believes artists as the creators and owners of their music need to reclaim their art," the statement added.
"These actions mark a historic moment for music artists in terms of the battle to regain control of their rights on the Internet."
Read their lips. There's a new sheriff in town. They have retained the services of British company Web Sheriff to help coordinate the action.
"In the last couple of weeks we have directly removed approximately 2,000 Prince videos from YouTube," said Web Sheriff managing director John Giacobbi.
"The problem is that one can reduce it to zero and then the next day there will be 100 or 500 or whatever. This carries on ad nauseam at Prince's expense," he told Reuters.
His company also removed about 300 items from eBay, where whole lines of pirated goods using Prince's name had appeared, including clocks, socks, mugs and key rings. The usual cheap goods.
Big name, putting up a big fight. Whether it pays off remains to be seen.
Prince to sue Youtube, eBay over music use
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