In case you missed it, Prince has sued a bunch of blogs and websites that were sharing his live recordings. I'm not part of that suit, most likely because I didn't feature his live recordings, he wasn't the main focus of my main site, and my sites have been offline for quite a while, which is fine because I didn't want to get sued. That said, a lot of people are talking about what this means, and I figured this was as good a time as any to share some thoughts on the topic.
First off, if you haven't seen the legal papers regarding the suit, go here and do so, they're very informative. If you have read them or don't have a clear understanding of what is going on, Prince is suing the proprietors of the sites in question for a million dollars each, based on the idea that he is losing profits by their disseminating his performances, and demanding the return of the content they've shared. If that all sounds a little ridiculous, it's because it is, but that isn't to say that it is any less dangerous for the parties being sued.
Prince, unlike many other artists that perform live, doesn't give permission for his shows to be recorded and shared. You could argue he is recording them for sale at a later date or other such purposes, but as he hasn't made any concerted effort during his career to issue these recordings beyond a few live DVDs, that argument only holds water if it's his future intent, which could very well be, though it wouldn't surprise me in the least if nothing ever came of this concept. He's also suing based on the concept that these are recordings of performances of his songs, as opposed to just being recordings of his songs. What this means is that the bootleggers didn't get permission to distribute recordings of his songs, as opposed to recordings of him performing his songs. It sounds like a small detail, but he's basically claiming someone is profiting from his compositions as opposed to him performing those compositions. It's a little backwards, and probably means his lawyers didn't think he could successfully sue for the distribution of bootlegged live recordings alone. To go even further, Prince is only suing American-run websites and isn't going after anyone selling bootleg CDs or merchandise via sites like eBay, which makes the whole thing rather limited and somewhat suspect. In the legal papers he claims the websites he's suing are making a profit, which is much more difficult to prove than anyone selling bootleg CDs. I never made any profit from my sites, nor did I ever intend to make a profit, though I never advertised and refused to participate in any such activities due to the potential legalities, but even if you did let Google run adverts on your site, how much money could you have made? Not enough.
Could he win the case? Yes, but it isn't necessarily likely. Will this stop people from recording his shows and sharing them online? No, but it will certainly drive his fanbase further underground. What will this achieve for him then? Well, Prince is under the illusion that his career is his and his alone. You could argue that the YouTube generation can share just about anything it wants, but he doesn't want to be part of it unless he's making money, and even then he doesn't seem terribly motivated by his finances. He's recorded albums and made films and videos for release only to cancel them without warning or explanation, and his catalog of unreleased material, both studio and live based recordings, is enormous, though he doesn't seem concerned with that either. He has started websites where he was able to share content for a price, either to provide a variety of material in low-resolution formats or to provide almost no content despite expensive rates to join. His track record for negligent treatment of his fanbase goes back forever, and if someone wanted to use it against him in a court of law they could build quite the argument, but he also has more money than most people willing to go up against him, so the likelihood of success via that point is unlikely, albeit for all the wrong reasons.
So what is he doing? This is probably all the lead-up to his releasing a new album and going on tour again. It will get him press, it makes him look anti-bootlegger and all about the individual "experience". He'll probably do an interview eventually where he discusses these points, and if he doesn't it will probably be mentioned by his associates. To his die-hard fans though, it just makes him look like a penny-pinching, megalomaniacal control-freak, and one that many fans will not support. Sure, there are those who follow blindly, like any cult artist's fanbase, but many won't tolerate this kind of treatment, and Prince's following has been dwindling because of this for years. Look back to the Crystal Ball debacle, the F.U.N.K. battle, his ignoring his catalog, his not letting his previous associates use their band names without paying him, and so on. On that last point, The Family became fDeluxe and The Time became The Original 7even, despite both bands consisting of their original line-ups. So who is he a friend to these days, anyways? His fanbase and collaborators, or his bank?
Now, to play devil's advocate for a moment, in Prince's defense, bootlegging is still illegal. If he doesn't want his shows to be recorded, that's his right. Doesn't mean it won't happen, but he can try to stop it. The question is, at what point does he have a right to interfere with his fanbase? If unofficially released recordings make his presence better known, he's profiting from it, and if no one else is profiting from it, who is it hurting? Not Prince, that's for sure. Go ahead and sue bootleggers that are selling CDs, but this is 2014, and very few groups are pushing illegally manufactured CDs, at least not in the US and UK. There are groups that still do, but anyone willing to pay for a pressed CD of a bootleg, or even worse, a burnt CD-R with cheap inserts, is being lazy, because, again, and not to be redundant, this is 2014, and you can get just about anything on the internet, whether Prince likes it or not.
I love Prince's music, and I have for a long time, and that's not likely to change, though I certainly don't care for the majority of his modern output or what he does now. We never heard if he paid Dave Chappelle for the use of his face on the Breakfast Can Wait single. We see him flip-flop on his previous statements regarding old songs, the freedom of his music, etc. As far as I'm concerned, Prince's music died circa 1996, and he's been dead a lot longer. I'm happy with his catalog up to that point, with Emancipation being the last clearly inspired thing he did, though I'll simply hold onto my copy of Sign O' The Times and The Black Album as true favorites. Much like the announcer at the end of the Gold Experience version of Endorphinmachine says, albeit in Spanish, PRINCE IS DEAD. And with that, for the good of his fanbase and my future legal stance, I'll NEVER publicly share anything he's recorded ever again. Whomever he is now, he's not worth it.
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