It has been my pleasure to defend Uptown Magazine against the lawsuit filed against it by Prince Rogers Nelson ("Prince").



Prince has been the central musical figure in my life since 1985. Beginning with the release of "Around the World in a Day," I have purchased each of his new albums on the day of their release. I have seen Prince in concert several times. In 1988, I spent an entire night waiting in line for tickets to his Lovesexy tour. At about 2 a.m., a careening car plunged into the line of people, killing one young man and injuring several other people. Despite my shock over the incident, I, along with a few others, remained in line. That night I met a fellow Prince fan - he was the very first person in line - who remains one of my closest friends to this day.



Prince's music has been a constant source of comfort, inspiration and entertainment to me throughout my adult life. As a musician, his work has often served as an example of what was possible when tremendous dedication meets truly abundant talent. His screams, his passionate solos, and his layers of gorgeous harmonies have truly touched by soul. His music has been there through searing romantic break-ups, long nights of studying, and exhausting workouts at the gym. There is no musician I listen to more regularly, or who influences me more.



Over the years, I have regularly read issues of Uptown. I always came away impressed by the thoroughness of its research and the intelligence of the writing. For a hardcore Prince aficionado, this was a goldmine of information. Clearly, the magazine would also be an indispensable source for future biographers and students of one of the top musicians of the modern era.



I was, like many, surprised to hear that Prince had sued Uptown. When I reviewed Prince's Complaint against Uptown, my surprise ripened into shock-the suit was frivolous to the point of being malicious. The suit was a heavy-handed use of power and money, a legal bludgeon wielded against individuals with no resources to fight back.



I was pleased when my law firm agreed to take on this case on a pro bono basis. Hanify & King is not a large firm, and our resources pale next to those of Thelan, Reid & Priest, the New York firm hired by Prince to take on Uptown and other defendants. Despite being just a few years out of law school, I did my best to aggressively defend Uptown. Fortunately, I had the assistance and guidance of two excellent lawyers with more experience, David Evans, Esq., the chairman of Hanify & King's computer law group and a top-notch litigator, and Paul Rapp, Esq., the outstanding Albany, N.Y., attorney who signed on as local counsel, also on a pro bono basis.



As the suit progressed, we noticed Prince's deposition, which would allow me and other Uptown lawyers to question him under oath. This, certainly, would have been an opportunity to interact with the musician I most admire. However, I never wanted to meet Prince under such circumstances, and I am not unhappy that the deposition never took place.



As a lawyer, I worked hundreds of hours on this case and got to study the legal issues in detail. With the case now over, I remain convinced that Uptown would have prevailed had the matter gone to trial. I also think Uptown could have prevailed on its claim that Prince misused the legal system in an effort to promote his own interests.



If Prince ever really understood his own lawsuit, his public comments indicated otherwise. In a recent public on-line chat, he stated "[w]e've very simply asked them 2 cease the sale of unauthorized materials... these people rn't fans." This statement is wholly inaccurate. Prince never "asked" Uptown to do anything-he simply filed suit, seeking to shut the magazine down. Secondly, Prince never even claimed in his suit that Uptown distributed bootlegged music. In this and other public comments, however, he implied that Uptown, and the other entities he sued, were engaged in Internet "piracy" and sale of his unreleased works. In effect, Prince used the media to accuse Uptown of criminal actions.



Throughout my defense of Uptown, I continued to listen to Prince's music. The lawsuit did not destroy my ability to appreciate his creativity. It did, however, diminish my respect for the man.



His lawyers told us-after the Court ordered Prince to appear for a videotaped deposition-that Prince wanted to settle the case, and that he had never wanted to shut down Uptown. He was simply troubled by the discussion of bootlegs in the magazine, and wanted Uptown to clarify that the magazine was not an "official" Prince product.



If this were true, why didn't Prince-or at least one of his representatives-send a letter to Uptown, or take some other step to initiate a dialogue? Why did he, from the start, ask the Court to enjoin publication of the magazine?



Uptown already ran disclaimers stating it was not official, so clearly the editors had no interest in passing the magazine off as a Prince-run outlet.



As the suit went on, the ironies multiplied. Recently, Prince's own website printed a report that he had been questioned by police for having sex in a public cinema. Uptown, by contrast, has never run such tabloid-like trash, focussing instead on Prince's music.



Uptown, in settling the suit, made only one real concession: it agreed to stop publishing bootleg discographies. It did so because Uptown's staffers have been ambivalent about bootleg records from the start, and have no real interest in drawing attention to such records. The settlement does give Uptown complete freedom to continue writing about unreleased songs, and to identify such songs as unreleased. Again, Prince-at least in his suit-never accused Uptown of distributing bootlegs. And for the record, Uptown has never done so.



Prince's greatest strength has been his obsessive focus on his music. However, this has also emerged as his greatest weakness. Prince Rogers Nelson is a man whose world-view has imploded and shrunk down to a small dot. He seems to think or care about little else than his own music, and how that music is perceived by the public. He seems to have no understanding of the parallels between his own legal actions and the historical efforts of totalitarian leaders to control discussion about themselves. He doesn't have a clue that Uptown is a labor of love. Judging by the lawsuit, he's never even read the magazine-he just called his lawyers and told them to do their best to get it shut down. This is sad, considering that Uptown is produced by some of the most earnest, sincere and devoted fans he will ever have.



Make no mistake, the settlement agreement reached yesterday was a victory for Uptown. Yet, for me, and I suspect for many others who support and read the magazine, it is a fairly joyless victory. The editors of Uptown never viewed this lawsuit as some public relations boon. They found it exhausting and at times frightening. They were worried about having to travel to New York to be questioned by Prince's lawyers, and about having to tear apart their offices and apartments to find documents. This was not "fun" for anybody, except possibly for me-I got to represent great clients whom I cared about, and I had an easy case where the facts and the law were overwhelmingly on my side.



I wish everyone involved well. I am happy to announce that the guys from Uptown have given me a free lifetime subscription, which I will enjoy reading. I hope Prince starts making great music again. He could smooth things over considerably by giving the editors of Uptown, and their legal representatives, free tickets to every concert he ever performs. While this probably won't happen, I hope he at least opens his heart to the fans who really care about him, and who are motivated by love, not money.



Alex Hahn

Boston, Massachusetts

cah@hanify.com

July 30, 1999
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