Tech Shout!

US Pop star Prince is dragging YouTube accusing the video sharing website of making unauthorized use of his music.

Prince is taking legal action in an attempt to “reclaim his art on the internet”. He essentially wants to ban any unauthorised video clips taken of his performances.

“These are steps that the ever innovative Prince is taking to reclaim his art on the internet,” a spokes for Prince said. Adding, “Prince believes strongly that as an artist the music rights must remain with the artist and thus copyrights should be protected across the board. Very few artists have ever taken this kind of action over their rights. Yet Prince has showed time and time again he is ready to challenge the system in new ways to put artists and music first.”

The start has asked Web Sheriff to fight his stance. Web Sheriff is involved in fighting online piracy and copyright violations.

John Giacobbi, managing director of Web Sheriff, said, “Some artists are very relaxed about the use of their image and music on the internet, some less so. Prince feels very strongly that people should remember his concerts as they were, not as some grainy mobile phone footage.”

He continued, “The vast majority of artists have little or no control over their rights on the internet, with piracy rampant and very little regulation. Prince’s actions are a brave and pioneering step to challenge the status quo and hand control over internet rights back to the artists.”

Though fans at his recent gigs at The O2 arena in London were restricted from clicking photographs or shooting video footage on their mobile phones, several still went ahead and posted clips on YouTube.

Apparently, in the past two-days, Web Sheriff has already removed over 2,000 unauthorized Prince clips from YouTube. But sadly, the new uploads are increasing at the same pace too.

This is the first time that YouTube has been sued by such a big artist. However it’s surely not the first protest that Prince has raised. In 1993, Prince appeared in public with the word “SLAVE” written on his cheek. All this was thanks to a contractual dispute with then record label Warner Bros.