MTV has covered the spate of shutdowns...
http://www.mtv.com/news/a...oubt.jhtml
Prince has had his lawyers shut down yet another fan site on the Internet. What distinguishes this shut-down, however, is that instead of posting bootlegs, Guide2Prince.org's focus was only to discuss and review them. Guide2Prince.org will cease operations at the end of the month, according to a post on the site, while the domain name will be available on eBay starting January 25. The site's operator said that his personal Prince collection would be auctioned off on eBay as well.

That article said the site's owner was gonna auction of his personal Prince collection! Why?

Adisa said:

Cos he's super pissed bout the way he's been treated!!

This just In! Prince career ova due to fan faction blurb

Prince has seemingly had his career sent to oblivion and will not be inducted into the hall of fam in his first shot.

He will not have re-releaseing of some of his past movies released on dvd even though he has no onvolvement.

His band has now left him and he is without any electricity to fuel his instruments for recording.It was also written that he had made a career mistake and was on a downward spiral

The cause?
It seems an MTV news blurb stating the impudent complaints of fans who were upset that he had a website that discussed..only discussed..bootlegs, shut down to protect his artistic property. Some fans took it as a once again strike against those who would not admit that they drank purple kool-aid in their fandom of wanting to have every performance released or at least written about in a forum all the while bitching and moaning about him and not seeing how they come off as screw loosers. But the biggest hit to Prince because of this blurb and future formal public complaint by those whith a lot of time on their hands is...Prince can no longer play piano or guitar.

It was also written that he had made a career mistake and was on a downward spiral

Prince could not be reached for comment on this because he has no career left and couldn't even get arrested these days.

Film at 11

OK, so sueing sites that contain bootleg songs on it, I can understand, though I see little benefit in doing it. However, if all g2p was doing was talking about unreleased recordings, doesn't this violate their right to freedom of speech?

I mean, could you imagine your favorite authors sueing fan sites that wrote about their forthcoming or unfinish books? Or George Lucas sueing all those stupid star wars spoiler sites?

Prince is acting like a right-wing republican these days.

rdhull said:

rdhull said:

AsianBomb777 said:

closet fam

Prince is an Orginal even if it pisses people off...he just wanted to be the first to shut down a site that even speaks of him...this Diva doin it up big before the rock n roll hall of fame

Aint this infringment of freedom of speech?? You can talk about whatever you like on your website

Jamademus said:

I'll open the bid at twelve cents!

cloud9mission said:

Not whatever you want... I don't think you can write on your website about how you're planning on killing a person or something like that...

Prince sucks

I really don't know why people are trippin' over Prince shuttin' this down too. It's pretty much agreed that bootlegging is unfair to the artist. It only follows that a site specializing in reviews OF bootlegs is just as bad. If the site existed in order to show how bootlegs aren't worth buying, then that would be one thing. Apparently, however, this site gave reviews of bootlegs, which in a roundabout way IS promoting the buying of them.

Jade said:

If someone wants to talk about the phenomenon of bootleged Prince albums, and create a catalog of all the unauthorized albums that have surfaced over the years with a description of their contents, that is perfectly legal.

It's some interesting reading and an interesting reference, not a detriment to Prince's career.

I don't buy that talking about bootlegs is promoting them. With that logic we could throw Wes Craven in jail for promoting murder.

Prince wanting to protect his intellectual property and image is one thing, but issues like these are where he's crossing the line into total absurdity.
[This message was edited Mon Jan 26 12:15:17 PST 2004 by Tom]

Jade said:

PAHLEEZ, are all the newscaster covering the bombings in the gulf promoting terrorism? This is America, and we are ALL allowed to speak our minds! Freedom is a beatiful thing!

But that's not important right now. What's important is that though I don't consider myself gay in anyway, I'd still probably sleep with Prince if he let me listen to the songs in his vault. No, I take that back--I DEFINATELY would.

you see, this is why I didn't buy his last 3 albums. That man is friggin crazy and he needs to be b*tch slapped.

guess I'm not a hardcore fan anymore. oh well.

Jade said:

I can't speak for anyone else but to me it just seems like a slap in the face to his fans (or fams whatever you prefer) What's wrong with someone who digs Prince's music devoting a site or a magazine to his work. Now like you pointed out in a roundabout way a case could be made that the site ( a site that I never heard of until all this went down ) promotes buying bootlegs and thats a stretch.

I would turn it around and try to make the case that there are so many topics you can discuss when it comes to Prince's career and the vast collection of bootlegs that are out there is one of them. Not to mention the site makes it clear that they don't sell or have any info on how to purchase these bootlegs. So what harm is this site causing I found it intresting to read on how much stuff is out there.

This is just another example on how Prince is obsessed with control. He doesn't want anything out there unless it's coming from Paisley.

Ok everyone,
I don't know where everyone is getting this is a freedom of speech issue. If you are an author and you write a book and I post your stories on the internet with out paying for thr right to or given permission to do so. That is steeling.
Same with music. A musician retains the rights to his or her music. Until he or she sells the rights to another person or group.
As far as I know Prince's Music is not yet public domain.
So if you post bootlegs or lyrics to unreleased albums you mos likly are going to get burned by any musician who wants to do it.
Post some Steven King books on your sites and see how long it takes his lawyers to come nocking. It's pretty much the same thing.

Natsume said:

Wrong - you can

How many song lyrics / books / magazines / films have contained murder scenes ? Should ALL of those authors / writers be sued as well ?

DarkLightning said:

Its NOT THE SAME AT ALL!! If the site was actually putting Prince's music up on the site, THAT would be illegal. If they were selling bootlegs, THAT would be illegal. To just talk about them is NOT ILLEGAL!!! If that were the case, then all the articles Rolling Stone did back in 1988 about the Black Album would have been illegal. If I discuss an unreleased Stephen King novel, its not illegal. If I SELL the same novel, or publish it on the internet, that IS illegal.

To put it in another context, say someone writes a book about a serial murderer. Is this illegal? No, because you can talk about the crimes, you just can't commit them. Is the author promoting serial murder? No, but even if they were, its not illegal to say something, only to do it. This person had a website devoted to prince bootlegs. It said they existed, and gave information about what was on them. It did not actually engage in selling them, or tell you where to go to get them (most are long out of print anyway). If Prince's lawyers had gone to court with this, they would have had to prove a couple of things:

1. That this website was actually doing anything illegal by discussing bootlegs

2. That Prince's business had been negatively impacted by the discussion of bootlegs.

Neither of these would have stood up in a court of law. The first is protected by the first amendment to the constitution of the United States, and would have been instantly thrown out. The second might have had a bit of weight, but it still would be rather difficult to prove, especially since bootleg's of Prince's music are not as pletiful as they used to be. In fact, the internet has almost completely destroyed the business of manufactured boots. Bootlegs of Prince's music were much more available back when he was popular, so an argument could actually be made that boots HELPED his career, not hurt it (the publicity generated over the boots of The Black Album certainly illustrates this point).

The fact of the matter is this: Prince is strong-arming these sites, because he wants total control over his art. I can understand this, but what he fails to recognise is that his need to control actually hurts his fans, who are just discussing the wealth of unreleased music that is out there. These are his hardcore fans, who are all he has left at this point, and they are the same people who will buy the material again if it gets released officially. Prince knows that the people who run these little websites don't have the time or money to battle it out in court, even if they are not legally in the wrong (notice that Prince hasn't taken on any of the bigger publications, like Godlmine that have discussed his bootlegs in the past?? Little harder to strong-arm a company who actually has the money to fight you in court, and then counter-sue you).

CarrieLee said:

/img]

Jade said:

Jade, I agree with you. I think that a lot of people are pissed because they were making money with Prince's music. Reviewing bootlegs does encourage the act of purchasing them. Prince knows what he is doing. I wholeheartedly support his shutting down these sites.