Prince threatens babies dancing on his songs on family vids, harrasses his fansites over copyright and other legal issues, pays a company to remove all his videos from Youtube, sends cease-and-desists to ex-collaborators who want to use the names of their old bands which Prince claims to own, and on top of it all he keeps repeating that he hates that other artists cover his songs but...

Two, not one but TWO bands cover a then-unreleased song in early 2011, their renditions end-up on that famous video website and not only Prince doesn't sue their asses for doing it (covering unreleased songs is illegal, contrarly to covering released ones) but the videos are allowed to stay online... While the fact that Prince released his own remake of the outtake in late 2011 tends to demonstrate that he's perfectly aware of these covers...

Conclusion: he likes these 2 band's renditions of his song???

Prince absolutely HATES CONtracts until he needs to rely on one to protect his cheese.

databank said:

Prince threatens babies dancing on his songs on family vids, harrasses his fansites over copyright and other legal issues, pays a company to remove all his videos from Youtube, sends cease-and-desists to ex-collaborators who want to use the names of their old bands which Prince claims to own, and on top of it all he keeps repeating that he hates that other artists cover his songs but...

Two, not one but TWO bands cover a then-unreleased song in early 2011, their renditions end-up on that famous video website and not only Prince doesn't sue their asses for doing it (covering unreleased songs is illegal, contrarly to covering released ones) but the videos are allowed to stay online... While the fact that Prince released his own remake of the outtake in late 2011 tends to demonstrate that he's perfectly aware of these covers...

Conclusion: he likes these 2 band's renditions of his song???

It's not Prince that threatens babies on the videos, it's Universal, ex Warner I think that own the copyright and unless they're getting paid, Youtube will go down like Napster. It's Youtube's duty I think to control the copyright because Lady Gaga stuff with kids gets muted too. How it works, which web-sheriff is working for who, and has made agreements with who I have no idea. But as long as someone is getting paid it's allowed. If not, it's gone.

I heard Prince say in an interview that he didn't mind it if 'friends' covered his songs. Maybe he knows these people personally?

Bohemian67 said:

databank said:

Prince threatens babies dancing on his songs on family vids, harrasses his fansites over copyright and other legal issues, pays a company to remove all his videos from Youtube, sends cease-and-desists to ex-collaborators who want to use the names of their old bands which Prince claims to own, and on top of it all he keeps repeating that he hates that other artists cover his songs but...

Two, not one but TWO bands cover a then-unreleased song in early 2011, their renditions end-up on that famous video website and not only Prince doesn't sue their asses for doing it (covering unreleased songs is illegal, contrarly to covering released ones) but the videos are allowed to stay online... While the fact that Prince released his own remake of the outtake in late 2011 tends to demonstrate that he's perfectly aware of these covers...

Conclusion: he likes these 2 band's renditions of his song???

It's not Prince that threatens babies on the videos, it's Universal, ex Warner

Nonononono.

WB owns the masters (i.e. the recording), Universal used to manage royalties payment (i.e. getting money for the writing of songs) until last month, and other companies such as Websherriff enforce Prince's hunt for videos.

Universal and the other majors have agreements with Google (owner of YT) that allows them to take down any video on demand, including thru automatic detection softwares, and Google enforces these deals so there isn't any risk of YT going down.

I made a mistake, though, since IIRC Prince didn't legally threaten the baby's family, he just asked the video to be removed by YT, and then it's the baby's family who went legal.

kenkamken said:

Do you think he wrote I2I for the Goofie Movie soundtrack? It featured Tevin Campbell and Rosie Gaines singing

Yes: he co-wrote it with James Brown and Michael Jackson in 1983, over a bottle of whiskey, right after they all went onstage together.

Bohemian67 said:

It's not Prince that threatens babies on the videos, it's Universal, ex Warner I think that own the copyright and unless they're getting paid, Youtube will go down like Napster. It's Youtube's duty I think to control the copyright because Lady Gaga stuff with kids gets muted too. How it works, which web-sheriff is working for who, and has made agreements with who I have no idea. But as long as someone is getting paid it's allowed. If not, it's gone.

I heard Prince say in an interview that he didn't mind it if 'friends' covered his songs. Maybe he knows these people personally?

Youtube will go down like Napster? Unlikely.

YT obviously think the duty of getting the copyright stuff down is the responsibility of the account holder who uploaded the video. Which is right in one sense, but also completely open to abuse in another sense. I think it's this frontier attitude that Prince (and other aggressive copyright holders) take offense to - If you play a song on the radio there are all kinds of licenses and royalties that need sorting no? In effect what youtube is, is the world's biggest pirate media broadcaster.

Don't get me wrong, I like the free and easy way you can just type something into youtube and get a rare TV performance of some obscure group from yesteryear - this is a fantastic archive of culture and media, but the way it is now can't last forever.

If i remember correctly, it is the publishing company that holds the rights to a song and they are guided by the songwriter, so any cover versions of a song have to be approved by the songwriter.

WB own the masters of Prince's version but Prince has the legal right to say yea or na to any song in his history being released by another artist.

So any cover legally released via the media Prince has approved.

I write this as an ex guitar player in a Dire Straits cover band in the UK.

databank said:

Prince does own the names/trademark/copyright of the time and the family.

Prince doesn't have to approve if someone covers his song. He just gets paid per publishing deal (like when GLEE covered Kiss.). So, he may protest-but he has no say who covers his music-as long as they pay the fees required to cover it.

kewlschool said:

Prince does own the names/trademark/copyright of the time and the family.

Prince doesn't have to approve if someone covers his song. He just gets paid per publishing deal (like when GLEE covered Kiss.). So, he may protest-but he has no say who covers his music-as long as they pay the fees required to cover it.

^ It's true: you can cover any song by anyone at any time and there's nothing they can do about it as long as u pay the money u owe them.

Now this is about songs that have been properly released and properly registered. What you CAN NOT do is to cover an unreleased song because technically, this isn't covering a song but stealing a song (you can't cover what's never been released in the first place, can you?).

So you can cover Kiss any day and there's not a thing Prince can do about it as long as you pay the rights to Controversy Music, but if you cover Moonbeam Levels then Prince can sue your ass until you beg for vaseline.

And if you want, you can cover Extraloveable NOW. But a year ago you simply couldn't.

I just remembered that in 2000 a German band covered In A Large Room With Ni Light (under the title Ratrace and, for obvious reasons, no mention of Prince being the song's real composer) and in 2009 Prince released the song himself. Could it be that he heard about this 9 years after it happened?

Isn't it odd that these 2 legendary outtakes, the only ones to have been released since Empty Room in 2002, have been illegally covered prior to Prince rerecording them?

kewlschool said:

Prince does own the names/trademark/copyright of the time and the family.

Prince doesn't have to approve if someone covers his song. He just gets paid per publishing deal (like when GLEE covered Kiss.). So, he may protest-but he has no say who covers his music-as long as they pay the fees required to cover it.

bit of confusion here. Anyone can cover any publish song. But using it in a show or program or synchronised to a video must be approved. Furthermore, any major changes to lyrics or arrangement also must be approved.

Oh fuck it's really hardcore now: a British band that was signed on fucking major BMG (unlike the German band which was on a small indie label) has released Old Friends 4 Sale several months before WB released Prince's version O_O

This being said, technically OF4S was copyrighted for release, released and credited as such in the film Under The Cherry Moon. I wonder if that's enough to cover a song? I guess it is, a film is a legit release after all...

databank said:

Bohemian67 said:

It's not Prince that threatens babies on the videos, it's Universal, ex Warner

Nonononono.

WB owns the masters (i.e. the recording), Universal used to manage royalties payment (i.e. getting money for the writing of songs) until last month, and other companies such as Websherriff enforce Prince's hunt for videos.

Universal and the other majors have agreements with Google (owner of YT) that allows them to take down any video on demand, including thru automatic detection softwares, and Google enforces these deals so there isn't any risk of YT going down.

I made a mistake, though, since IIRC Prince didn't legally threaten the baby's family, he just asked the video to be removed by YT, and then it's the baby's family who went legal.

A nice easy image story from Andy McKee about the music market.

http://theoatmeal.com/com...c_industry

Makes sense to cut out the middle man. They earn the fortune and the artist doesn't. Plus it doesn't even belong to them even though they made it. But.....unfortunately, it's like that in almost every industry. Bart's IT programming isn't owned by him but someone makes a lot of money with it by selling it on. i.e. Middle man. So it's not only the music industry. Welcome artists to the real world