Prince may or may not be suing three fan Web sites for using his likeness without his permission. As reported earlier this week, those fan sites joined together as "Prince Fans United" and called the alleged legal action against them a violation of freedom of speech. However, a company helping Prince in his copyright issues told Reuters the Purple One is not suing his fans. "This is not about freedom of speech," said John Giacobbi, managing director of Internet policing specialist Web Sheriff. "The current issue is one between Prince's record label and three unofficial Web sites and relates to the use of Prince trademarks and photographs, many of which are Prince's copyright."
But whether legal action is being forged or not, one thing is for sure: Prince has taken out his frustrations musically and recorded a new diss track for the false fans and hangers on. The Funk jam, dubbed "PFUnk," is posted at Princefamsunited.com. "The only reason you say my name is to get your fifteen seconds of fame, nobody’s even sure what you do,” Prince sings. "I don’t care what people may say, I ain’t gonna let it ruin my day.” Toward the end, Prince tells his fans, “I love all y’all, don’t you ever mess with me no more."
He is expected to cap an aggressive two-month legal campaign to protect his copyright by suing The Pirate Bay, a popular BitTorrent tracking site best known for helping people find unauthorized copies of music and movies.
Prince plans to sue The Pirate Bay in three countries for encouraging copyright violations--the United States, France, and Sweden, where the Pirate Bay is based.(read more)
"Prince is obliged to come up with the plan because no one else has done anything about this blatant piracy," said John Giacobbi, president of Web Sheriff, the antipiracy firm Prince hired to coordinate his copyright fights. "These guys are operating a huge piracy operation, but Prince means business. The Pirate Bay has had the ballpark to themselves for far too long."
Critics also ripped Prince after his handlers sent a take-down notice to a Pennsylvania woman who had posted a video clip of her baby dancing to a few seconds of the Prince rocker "Let's Go Crazy."
Some believe Prince was disappointed by his online experiments. Whatever revenue he generated from Web sales doesn't appear to have been enough to prevent him from going to the record labels for help distributing his music on CD. Sony was due to release Planet Earth in the United Kingdom this year but backed out when Prince inked a deal with Britain's Sunday Mail to include a copy of the album with every newspaper circulated on July 15. The promotion also angered the country's music retailers.
Online distribution arrangements developed by other musicians have yielded mixed results as well. Last month, the British band Radiohead told fans to download its album In Rainbows and pay whatever they wanted. ComScore, an Internet tracking service, reported last week that it estimated only 38 percent of those who downloaded paid anything at all.
Sources: str8hiphop & Prince: The Artist Who Formerly Liked the Internet
