Why is it that some recording artists, such as Radiohead, understand that the media world is changing because of the Internet and that fighting that change is not only pointless but self-destructive while others, such as Prince, apparently don’t get the issue?This last week Prince (who I once heard described as “Bambi on testosterone”) decided that his fan base needed to be pissed off. Thus it was that last week the little fellow’s henchmen demanded that three fan sites remove any unauthorized pictures of the Prince because, they claim, the sites are infringing Prince’s copyright.
From what I can determine many if not the majority of the images were taken by fans at Prince concerts but even so, that’s beside the point because it makes no sense. Why would Prince want to alienate his fans (misguided though they might be)? Perhaps he’s looking for the Streisand effect.
Whatever the reason and even if the sites in question are making fast and loose with Prince’s copyright this is a great example of one of the biggest risks of being a litigatious celebrity on the Internet: If you don’t spin things in your favor up front the result can easily make you the bad guy and the world will know in milliseconds.
