Remedy at law
>>>substantial, immediate and irreparable injury ... for which there is no adequate remedy at law<<<
So I'll use the law to sue you for money you doubtless won't have.
Prince Rogers Nelson – the artist currently known as Prince – has filed lawsuits against 22 people for $1m in damages apiece, alleging that each posted links to bootleg recordings of his concerts on file-sharing networks. According to court documents [PDF] obtained by The Register, the Purple One has named Dan Chodera, Karina …
In the US, the procedure is to start a "Jon Doe" case, then get orders against Google and Facebook to reveal the IP addresses of the people you are interested in, then get the ISP that owns those addresses to reveal the subscriber, then proceed with the case against the subscriber.
In the UK, you would get Norwich Parmcal orders against Google, Facebook and the ISP, and then sue the subscriber when you know their name.
The calculation of damages.
If one were referring to a single track, the absolute maximum amount that should be entertained by a court of law should be based (imho) on the following..
i) Maximum revenue generated by a single track for the artist, after deductions (X)
ii) Median of X based on number of tracks sold and revenue received (mX)
ii) Total number of cases of unlawful distribution (aka copyright infringement) (Y)
Therefore the maximum damages per party could be described as mX/Y
Obviously this is a simplification, but I can't see that coming to more than about £3.50 in this particular case. Hardly worth the expense of a court case is it?
All part of a long running saga of the Purple One's confused battle with, err..., almost everybody it seems.
His previous album was released online and left fans angry with a $77 subscription for a 'floating jellyfish' (http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/04/02/my-year-with-prince/), and in a fit of pique, he released his most recent through the Daily Mirror (http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/prince---world-exclusive-interview-233220)
"The internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it.
"The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.
"They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you."
Maybe he should quit giving concerts and thus no one can create an unauthorized recording.
Did these defendants only provide links? If so, that is a crime? Doesn't a search engine do the same thing? Why not go after the sites that allow these evil links to be posted? Surely they are assisting in this crime.
Did his attorney provide the links with the complaint? If so, then he needs to sue his attorney as now the clerk and the judge have this links as well. He lawyer should not be distributing this illegal information.
"Did these defendants only provide links? If so, that is a crime? Doesn't a search engine do the same thing? Why not go after the sites that allow these evil links to be posted? Surely they are assisting in this crime."
This was Isohunt's argument as well, that you could just as easily find the torrent files through google as with any search engine. Didn't work out too well for them....
A great deal depends on the artist. I was at a free Bo Diddley concert back when there were luggable video cams but no internet. At the start of the concert he announced that while this performance was free, he made his money by giving concerts and the arts festival committee had paid him. So if he thought anyone was recording it for bootleg purposes, he'd stop and leave the stage. In the middle of the concert he saw something he didn't like and stopped playing until it was resolved. And back in those days spreading pirated copies of stuff was even more difficult than today, so it wasn't likely to cause him what you or I would consider real harm. But it was his concert and I won't fault him for his choices. And yes, I had a helluva good time listening.
> And back in those days spreading pirated copies of stuff was even more difficult than today, so it wasn't likely to cause him what you or I would consider real harm.
At the same time, nowadays if you can assert your claims as the copyright holder of a work being distributed online by a third party (case in point: a video of your concert uploaded to YouTube by someone else), you get a cut of the benefits generated by that content (advertising, pay-per-download, etc.) There is a whole new world of opportunity out there if you know how to play the game.
Just sue the hell out of everyone to make up for the income you don't get now. <sigh>
Similar to a patent troll but different.
The question I'd have for him is that if the Internet was dead in 2010, why is he suing now? It's dead. By his logic, there's no one left on the Internet to share his music (or what passes for music).
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>Are you seriously suggesting that bootlegs are stopping people from going to concerts?
Nah but the live show is his creation and he does get to do with it what he wants. The ticket has contract language about your rights only to watch and not record. Still yeah he is coming across as a jackwagon. I guess you get desperate when you are so irrelevant you are looking at having to play the casino circuit.
Of course. It totally makes sense that people who are desperate enough to scavenge lousy bootlegs unobtainable from legitimate sources are, due to their doing so, far less likely to attend a concert in person or buy a normal album from the artist in question.
I mean, as a musician, I get wanting to have some control over how your work is distributed. But if you genuinely believe that hearing a bootleg is going to convince ten thousand people to avoid your work in the future, you probably have other issues than piracy when it comes to your commercial prospects.
Per celebrity.com, Prince Rogers Nelson is valued at (has net worth at) USD $300m. This $22 suit will probably bankrupt the pirates, enrich (but not "enwealthen", to richly "coin" a word) the lawyer to some small amount -- but if there are zero assets of monetary value, there probably is very little to be "obtrieved".
Just my $0.0073 (yes, I shifted the decimal to devalue my comment quite a bit). Cha-ching!
.. and of course the purple poser is so musically relevant, I mean look at the long long long list of his success at the top of the charts.
Another case of some reasonable talent totally eclipsed by egomania and a failure to grasp reality, After encouraging a lot of negativity over the "symbol" stupidity, he seems ready to demonstrate his lack of engagement with this.
For me Doves Cry and purple rain marked the high-water of his career - after that - the tide went out - along with my ability to take him seriously.
... the "Artist" was actually booed back on stage. He was on for about 60 minutes before going off, people had paid upwards of £60 for a ticket, and started booing and his support act had to come back on until he could be brought back out. (O2 Docklands).
Seriously, it's a bootleg of a gig that won't be released for commercial availability. No harm has been done, he's just peeved he didn't think to release a CD or DVD of the gig himself.
As a human being, not so much. No way would I pay a penny to hear the entitled little shit after he borrowed an incredibly rare vintage guitar from the house band on a TV show in the US, then proceeded to smash it at the end of the set.
He is deserving of nothing but a kick in the goolies.