Prince to Sue Youtube and Ebay: artists need to reclaim their art….
Posted September 14, 2007 — in Music News
Prince plans to sue YouTube and other major web sites for unauthorized use of his music in a bid to “reclaim his art on the Internet”.
Prince said that YouTube could not argue 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,” says Prince
YouTube responded by saying it was working with artists to help them manage their music on the site. We have great partnerships with major music labels all over the world that understand the benefit of using YouTube as another way to communicate with their fans.”
Prince plans legal action against online auctioneer eBay and Pirate Bay, a site accused by Hollywood and the music industry as being a major source of music and film piracy.
The legal action is the latest bid by the music industry to wrest back control over content in an age here file sharing, mobile phones and video sites make enforcing copyright increasingly difficult.
“Prince strongly believes artists as the creators and owners of their music need to reclaim their art,” “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.
Prince’s latest initiative is likely to please record industry executives and music retailers, who have not always seen eye-to-eye with the 49-year-old.
He has referred to the record industry as “the speculation business” and gave away copies of his new album “Planet Earth” for free with a British Sunday newspaper.
What’s the matter? No one has anything to say about this? Sitting there thinking you may not be perceived as being “Cool” to say something negative about YouTube? Well, ponder this “Cool One”. What do you think YouTube would do if someone started an identical site
called U-Tube and started doing the same exact thing?
Think they’d be ok with it? And what about you? Supposing you spent years working and sacrificing to “create” something, and the next thing you know, some “Cool Site” is letting people take your “creation”
for free, without even asking you!!
Let’s face it, if you can get beyond all the hype and bullshit you’d realize that YouTube is just another
Cold Hearted Business Idea seeking to Capitalize on the hardwork and creativity of others. I have nothing against anyone wanting to give away their product for free. BUT, IT SHOULD UP TO THAT Person, Creator, or Inventor TO MAKE THAT DISCISION. Not the general public, or some Computer Geek looking to CASH IN!
THERE IS NOTHING “COOL” ABOUT THAT!!
Comment by Michael Barile — September 14, 2007 @ 8:59 am
Michael…that door swings both ways.Prince is right..but..you take a small market band and you tube can help in getting future fans and cd sales.what would really make a difference ? is when all the video makers that get on youtube start demanding payment.or better a video internet site that pays.Prince…could have just fired the first shot.
Comment by larry anderson — September 14, 2007 @ 10:37 am
I agree Larry. Progress is never perfect. However, there is a HUGE difference between an Artist wanting to put their stuff on YouTube, and someone STEALING it and putting it on YouTube.
Comment by Michael Barile — September 14, 2007 @ 12:18 pm
Honestly - its a double edge sword. I can see Princes argument. A website is profiting off of his work. I understand that new bands want the exposure, but they don’t need Youtube. They could put up a video on myspace.
Also, It is true that Youtube Claims they have a hard time controlling the content. Thats BS. They can control Porn and Pedophelia but they CANT control music videos? YEAH Right!
I can understand that Prince wants money from Youtube. He is a smart business person. Smart business people know how to make money.
By law, youtube is GUILTY of copyright infringement.
Comment by koar — September 14, 2007 @ 2:03 pm
I honestly think it’s impossible for them to regulate all the videos that go up, every single day. There is no way they can watch for content on every video.
The only way to work it is to have the general public submitt a complaint when they see a bands video or unappropriate material. And I doubt the public will turn in music videos.
YouTube is the 4th largest site in the world. MySpace is the 6th largest site in the world. And MySpace has over 200,000,000 million users. To regulate all the videos is near impossible. Even Al-Qaeda videos pop up on YouTube and takes days to clear them.
It’s just going to be like downloading. Artists will complain but there will be way too many sites to fight it. Doesn’t make it right but I think that’s how it’s going to go.
By the way, there are a ton of rip-off sites like YouTube.
Comment by tim.towner — September 14, 2007 @ 7:19 pm
Youtube can keep off the porn because people are much more likely to report that sort of thing than a copyright violation.
Comment by Keith Freund — September 16, 2007 @ 8:10 am