Prince orders fan-run sites to remove images of him

Prince has threatened to take legal action against fan-websites if they don’t remove lyrics and photos of him from their sites.

This comes after Prince removed all YouTube clips of him in concert from the site. This was momentarily halted by an American woman who had posted a 30 second video clip of her toddler dancing to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy”. Prince did go crazy, and Universal ordered the site to remove the clip.

But you don’t poke the angry momma bear, half a court case later and she has the video back up because it falls under the “fair use” category of the copyright. The case continues and momma bear is backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Prince is trying to remove any content from the internet for which he might own the copyright and has enlisted the help of Web Sheriff to enforce the ban. Fans say they fully support copyright laws and while Prince is fully entitled to remove any images where the copyright belongs to him, any pictures that fans have taken of the performer remain the property of the photographer.

Having said this, several of the artist’s more recent concerts saw a ban on using mobile phones to take pictures or video and cameras were confiscated at the door.

A spokesperson for Prince Fans United claims that because the sites are run by the fans for the fans it seems unfair to demand they remove images of prince as they are not using them for commercial purposes.

Wonder how he felt about one UK newspaper giving Planet Earth away for free ?