I believe with the closing (or temp closing) of Housequake.com, the time has come for what I have long advocated for.

Prince websites like prince.org and others need to make money in order to support and defend what they are doing. I agree with Ben, there is a lot of work involved in maintaining these sites to a point where it's a job and we give them nothing.

Perhaps if Housequake.com actually had a pot to dig into, they could have defended themselves against Prince. Is it worth it? It depends on how much you believe in what you do, and how much you believe in yourself. Each individual must take these considerations when a situation like Aaron's confronts one of us.

I suggested before on HQ, with immense opposition from moderators that these sites need to grow up and become fruitful. A business plan should be written, ads should be sold, and more elaborate areas of the site should be monthly membership fees. I know many oppose this idea, but the fact is we all need to contribute to support someone we like. Prince.org could have a free area driven by ads, and for more (like communicating with other members etc.) you have a minimal fee of $5 or $10. The days of free are coming to an end, you can thank Prince for the change. No one ever said he was a cheap artist to be a fan of. What are your thoughts?
[Edited 2/18/09 7:01am]

If funds are required to pay for hosting, maintenance, development and upgrades, the best way of achieving that without losing a large portion of your membership is to host ads, and if Ben feels he needs to recoup some of the financial outlay, then I dare say that's where he'll start.

I'm a member of various forums where there are several large ads at the top of every thread, and ads in between every 3 posts.

Annoying? Yes, for a while, but if the content is interesting you don't even notice them. I think it's the perfect solution to providing maintenance costs. If that didn't cover the costs (and given the number of clicks this site must get it probably would), then the next step should be to ask for donations towards running costs.

I disagree with the idea of introducing membership fees, I think doing so would kill the site quicker than Prince could.

After all, if you're paying membership for a site you want content for your money, and let's face it - this site doesn't have any. It's just a collection of forums, so it's a question of how valuable the feeling of community is to it's members.

If you were to ask for donations towards running costs you'd probably get plenty. But if a membership fee were introduced, for the vast majority of the current membership it would be bye-bye prince.org and hello any number of other Prince forums where chatter is free.


But that's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about providing funds to fight Prince.

And while I think that it is important for Prince to be disabused of the notion that he has the right to intimidate site owners simply because he dislikes the existence of their websites, I think there may be better ways of achieving it than throwing money at the problem.

That's Prince's solution, and you can bet your last cent that he has more funds at his disposal to issue cease and desist orders than any fan community could ever hope to raise to fight them.

Another problem with this approach is that many people would just disagree with providing funds to fight Prince, even if they disagree with his tactics and what he's doing.

Trying to fight Prince on his own terms is simply pointless - if it is his objective to shut down a fan site then it's only a matter of time before he succeeds. There's only so much shit a person can take, and I'm not surprised that Aaron eventually got sick of it and opted for a quieter life.

Anyone would eventually succumb to a bombardment of mostly indefensible legal demands, but why is all the shit flying in one direction?

Here's my solution :

For every Prince fan site that is brow-beaten into closure, another hundred should be opened to replace it. I guarantee you, collectively we can activate websites faster than Prince's lawyers can print cease and desist orders. Let's see how many sites are ceased and desisted before he gets bored.

Actually , I'm not really suggesting that as a solution, even though if properly organised it could work.

I don't really know that there is a solution, other than the obviously very costly legal battle you suggest we support. Hosting a website about him that in no way infringes his copyrights (like this one, for instance) is not illegal, nor will it ever be.

With any luck Prince will bring about a situation where it is illegal to intimidate a site owner into closure with constant and often spurious claims of copyright infringement. As such, the state could prosecute him, and we could spend our money buying his albums rather than paying for lawyers to fight him.

So I think that until or if the question of financial aid is raised by Ben himself, what I am going to do is :

- make my opinion on Prince's tactics perfectly clear (should be fairly clear by now) in forums like these - so long as they exist. I know he pops in occasionally to see what we're saying about him.

- vote with my pocket. Prince, leave the org alone or I won't buy your new album(s).

- wait for everything to settle down again -

Every time Prince is getting ready for a new online launch the legal threats start flying and a few sites disappear. Once the focus has shifted to his new site and it's returning a profit, a calm descends and fan sites are allowed to co-exist peacefully (like humans and fish), and are even sometimes permitted to share some copyrighted works.

So once Lotusflow$r has become whatever it's supposed to become - if the org survives that long - we can all relax again.

Then Prince gets bored, shuts down his site, has an idea for a new one, and the cycle begins again...

muskiediver said:

Actually funding for legal fees was never an issue. Due to the amount of Prince fans working in the legal industry and their contacts, a great deal of support (including the defence of prince.org I should add) came at zero cost.

It wasn't about money, it was about time away from our friends and family (I was spending around 20 hours per week on the PFU during all of the lawsuit threats in 2007) and the "grief" factor.

muskiediver said:

I wouldn't call it "immense opposition". I merely pointed out that should Housequake become a commercial operation then its legal position would change dramatically. As a not for profit organisation, even if Prince did successfully find something to sue for (and believe me, he tried every angle) then not being a commercial organisation would mean that no damages could be paid. Whilst Aaron put himself on the line several times, meaning he could face financial penalties is not a risk he was willing to take.

Prince was convinced for many years that HQ was making money from "his name". Actually after the PFU malarky and the work done by Web Sheriff to find out what REALLY went on behind the scenes did he finally understand and appreciate that no money was being made and the meagre amounts of revenue made from merchandise and donations had gone straight back into the site funding. In fact we sent Web Sheriff a complete breakdown of accounts for the past 5 years which showed that Aaron had put a great deal of his own money into the site.

I hope that all makes sense and clarifies why HQ never became commercial.

TY for the info Gav

Obviously, cause neither the Org nor HQ has existed for very long. :majorirony:

Gav said:[quote]

muskiediver said:

Wow, so amazing what is actually going on...