http://www.mtv.com/news/a...inem.jhtml

Within a week of shutting down one fan site, Prince has set his lawyers on another. Guide2Prince.org plans to cease operations at the end of the month, but the latest target, Smallclub.org, says that it was temporarily closing the site after being contacted by the law firm representing the musician. The domain name for Guide2Prince.org, meanwhile, is now available on eBay.

I wonder how Prince would feel if some of the musicians he admired like James Brown or Santana sent their legal teams after him and told him he was not allowed to play their music on stage anymore

ewm232003 said:

They won't. Cause he payd and pays the royalties.

Listen,
Prince can do what he wants with his music. That's the bottom line.
You oughta better feel happy to get the chance to hear his unreleased music for such a long time, through all these motherfuckers of bootleggers who don't give adamn about Prince. They even don't give a damn about music at all. They just want money money money. ANd nothing else.

Remember the price of the boots at the end of the eighties? extreme high (fro vinyl!).. then when CD's became more common, the prices still were incredible high, if not impossible. And the quality sucked big time (untill halfway 90's they got better)!

So nowadays boots are more or less still expensive.
I'm glad there's something like the internet. It caused a huge difference for bootleggers to earn more in the beginning, but soon th filesharing made it hard for them.
Nowadays fans can nearly find anything on the net, when they are a bit computerminded and creative in their search.

So in a way, i think it's Prince's right to defend what belongs to him. Only, i realy don't get it that he attacks fansites, rather than bootleg-makers-sites.
I even think that fans should be able to share files thorugh the internet for free. These fans payd for a long time for all his bills.. etc. SO if they like to share P2P music which eachothere, i hardly can't imagine it would harm Prince financially.

Anyway, we will be angry for some time, whenever something is shut down again! But when he releases something new, we all forget about what happened. So he more or less counts on that i think.
Bootleggers by the way are smart too! They try to get in contact with real big fanatic fans, so they can make them part of the process of making and distributing amongst other fans. Every fan would be glad to get contacted to buy unreleased material,even some of them to help and spread the word. Let's all be honest.
Bootleggers also pay for spreading the work, so no one wants to get any finger pointed at, and all of 'm are involved with the black money/Prince's belonging.

It's fucking complicated. I bought myself boots as well. In the end i always felt dissapointed by buying them. Actually the quality sucks, cause expectations got too high. Boots can't cmpete with official releases anyway.
But things changed over the past years. Prince's latest releases even can't compete with bootleggers lay outs anymore! The ONA LIVE box sucked big time. Even bootleggers release boxes of live material which looks better than some tof the official newer releases.
Only Prince's hand on the music is worth (a bit) more then the bootleg ones. They just registrate live music, in a very good quality if possible, but that's about it. Oh yeah, the lay out sometimes is great. But except for some pictures, there much more info to be found (depends of the bootmaker). Even the unreleased studio recordings suck from quality and creativity by bootleggers.

Still i can't seem to get some things right.
Why doesn't Prince try to find those bootleggers? I mean, this can't be that difficult?!

Then, how come so much of the unofficial material got out in the first place? Unreliable employees?
I know one thing, Prince is a controlfreak, so when he hires someone, i'm pretty sure he shows them a pilehigh contract, which first of all tells you what 'not' to do, rather than 'what' to do! So it seems very hard to believe that former employees wanted to make extra money out of unreleased material, or even try to get fired by something like this. I mean, come on, if so, Prince's garbage would've been circulating the net and ebay as well! We don't find any pieces of papers and written notes on there, or even thrownaway stuff that means a lot to fans. )) (am i going to far?)
When you know that, for instance, Prince gave a track to Robert Palmer (Lust U Always), or Madonna (By Alien Means), or to Kylie Minogue (...) as to so many others, which those artists rejected, still these tracks remain uncirculated. Which means that those people understood the art of loyalty and ownership. Or just happened to read all the little words in the accompanied lawyerpaperwork.

So if there are insiders who happened to know a lot more, and i mean who KNOW the facts, please share 'm with us, cause things might get really wrong interpreted around here.
And an uninformed fan isn't worth yelling words at Prince or his company i think, especially when they don't like what he wants to do with his own creations.
An opinion is one thing, but also can be very distructive for nothing.

One more thing. I also think that fansites, should remain fansites. Which is, fans can have pictures and if snippets of music on there. Come on, i mean, they ARE the bigest and perfect free advertising group for his music in the world.
So leave your fans alone Prince! ) But so called lists of unreleased material is something else. That's risky. But only possible to put up there, when for instance Prince's press agents release tracklists of upcomming projects which later are withdrawn by Prince himself... know what i mean?!

What disturbs me the most, is that on the OFFICIAL site, you are not democratically free to say what you want or think what you want about Prince's outlet. Knowing this, and the constant search of his lawyers bothers me too.

I repect his believes. But it would be more relevant to let everyone go into a discussion, rather then to filter them out if someone just doesn't agree with his thoughts.
I think democracy just makes itself strong when everyone is allowed to say freely what they want, even if it is full of hate or shit. If Prince believes so much in positivity, he should know that the real truth always will win. But it doesn't win by suppression of evil, or trying to close yourself in with shutting down harmless fansites.


Peace to everyone.

Remarkably well said.

i've always been a believer that perhaps prince slips the bootleggers the discs himself...think about it...perhaps he it's another income for him, quick instant hard cash. he'd be like "here ya go, last weeks outtakes - it's a loada crap but the suckers will buy it off ya anyway - so that'll be 30gs please...and the bootlegger says - bargin...and makes 35gs of the sales...or whatever...

that's entirely hypothethical u understand...

He aint very good at publicity these days huh?? I still dont understand why he cant come to some sort of agreement with the offending site owners who im sure would accomodate him, rather than suing fans. Not good buisiness no matter what your reasons.

Can I send My Lawyers 2 close a site with faulse advertizibg of New Music in the NPGMC?
[This message was edited Tue Jan 27 16:41:16 PST 2004 by Symbolsm]

Better act soon if you want the domain name!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eB...gory=11156

The problem I have with all of this is that Prince is attacking a couple of sites that just discuss bootlegs, and don't in any way distribute them. Bootleg manufacturers are what he should go after. Better yet, he should COMPETE with the bootleggers by releasing more of his stuff through NPGMC. If the stuff is widely available, it will hurt the bootleggers more.

JediMaster said:

While this makes some sense, its faulty logic. This would be like just going after the poppy field farmers and drug smugglers and not arresting the dealers. They are all guilty if there is a law against what they do. Thus they are subject to the law. Prince is exercising his rights under the law.

Competing with the bootleggers would make sense as well. Personally, I wish he would step up his efforts through the NPGMC to do just that. However, the market - even the hardcore longtime Prince collector segment of it - can be over saturated. Prince already releases more material than most, if not all, pop artists on this planet. I might be apprehensive if I were Prince when I heard so called fans complaining about the membership fee and what they didnt get and how they refuse to support the club. Everyone wants something different (Roadhouse Garden, Crystal Ball II, the Celebration recordings, concert videos, certain merchandise items, free and damn near free stuff, etc) and it probably just isnt possible or feasible to offer everything. In fact, much of what people want and expect has not even been proven to exist.

I loved Guide2Prince.org.(even though they would lag on updates over the last year or so) It helped me managed my large bootleg collection. But I have no remorse for collecting them because I, unlike so many bootleg collectors, have EVERY official release in audio and video. Prince and NPG lose no money on fans like me because I buy everything they offer and then I get what they dont offer on the blakc market.

If we expect and accept the benefits of Prince's courage and bravado to be independent (so that he can release anything he wants at anytime that he wants), we have to at least understand what it takes to protect his interests which enable him to remain independent.

When you stop to think about the big picture and the law and relinquish the greedy and egocentric position on this issue, it does make sense - even though you may not like it.
[This message was edited Wed Jan 28 7:04:43 PST 2004 by undulatingacrobat]
[This message was edited Wed Jan 28 9:18:09 PST 2004 by undulatingacrobat]

kelfog said:

no one in their right mind would buy it as we can see why it was made available in the first place. Buy this domain name & get sued, yeah right!

ewm232003 said:

Because he pays credit to them! Bootlegs don't!

If U Had The Original Black Album You Would Understand Where Prince Is Coming From,Warner Bros.Has Capitolized Very Much Off Alot Of His Music.As The Old Saying Goes:Don't Judge Until You Walk A Mile In His Shoes,It Is Easy For Everyone To Speculate And Imagne)Just Like TV News,But Everyone Is Entitled To Their Opion As Prince Is Entitled To His,Quit Bitching,Get Over It.Only GOD Can JudgeBy The Way,Have You Listen To The Truth Lately???
One,Two:The Evolution Will Be Colorized.Make Love Not War,Erotic City Come Alive,Peace,I'm Out!!

boston3 said:

You were judging right there my crazy friend.