Prince: Fighting For Artist Rights, and Suffering Abuses

If you're into the world of all things creative, then you probably spend a fair amount of time online, and listening to music. If you're a motivated type of person, you might use your own creativity to try to express yourself online for others to see. However, there's a severe problem happening, and it's coming to light thanks to the efforts (once again) of Prince at the forefront, leading the fight for protection of artist's rights.

What's at issue is the fact that consumers are confused in today's push-button, instant action internet age that they have the right to use their media in any way that they deem appropriate. They believe that if they bought an album or MP3, they can use a particular song as the background material for their picture slide-show, or YouTube video they wish to share to others.

This is simply against copyright law. You do not own the right to the creative property, and therefore you do not have the right to choose how that particular property is portrayed to the public. Only the artist should have the right to choose how his efforts are used- in all forms. To think otherwise is to take all creative protections and rights away from the artist. In this particular example, you're trying to say that someone has the right to take a Prince song and present it to others in a way that is against the vision Prince has for said song. That, to anyone with a modicum of IQ, is obviously wrong.

The quick defense of people online is "fair use"- but their interpretation of fair use is often incorrect and pointless. The slope is far too slippery in dealing with fair use. So, you put a video up of your babies dancing around the kitchen to a Prince song- it's "fair use". No- it's not. Prince probably doesn't envision that song being used in such a fashion- and only he has the right to decide that, not you. Where things get slippery is if you apply "fair use" to that instance, then what's to stop someone from putting up a "silent" movie, where they just "happened" to have Prince music playing in the background? The concept is too open to abuse. The real issue at stake here is a lack of respect for the rights of the artist's work. And trust me- this is a serious issue, because if you disrespect the artists, they will stop producing- and our society cannot survive without quality art. It's an impossibility.

Already because of the actions of so many online ignoring copyright law, damages have been done to consumers. Prince has withdrawn his presence from the internet (pulling down his 3121 homepage)- which stops consumers like me from having access to one of the most important things in our lives. Because of other's actions, I lose the ability to find official merchandise to buy (it's illegal to be selling it on eBay, you don't have the rights), I lose the ability to have affordable, guaranteed front row seats to concerts- my next concert I'll probably have to spend up to 500 percent more for a ticket to guarantee I'm in the front. And that's not my fault- it's the fault of those breaking the laws, and then blaming Prince and his companies for doing the only appropriate thing- nicely asking to stop breaking the law.

The biggest misconception- actually, lies- that are being told/reported/spread throughout these cases is that Prince, due to his ego and desire for money, money and more money, is suing his fans. Flat, bald-faced lie. Prince contributes more to charity than most other artists combined. He is not taking action based on "greed" or gaining financial leverage. Also, Prince has not sued anyone. A DMCA takedown notice is not being sued. It is a polite notice informing the copyright law breaker that they are in violation. In fact, the woman that broke the law in the first place with her dancing babies video is the one suing- SHE's the one being vicious despite being wrong in this matter. This is the type of person that we should be railing against, calling her out for her negligence of the laws or her unwillingness to comply when educated.

Yet instead the worst elements of our society are at work- the vitriol is being spilled out upon Prince- name calling, homophobia (despite Prince being heterosexual), demands for boycotts- things that only children or those with children's minds would espouse. These people are welcome to stop buying Prince albums- their actions won't impact his legacy as the greatest artist in the whole of human history- that fact is established through his work to date, awards and contributions to society. There's a reason Prince is in the Smithsonian's "national treasures" exhibit.

In fact, the actions of this vocal minority, mostly consisting of kids and the uninformed, won't even begin to dent the sales of his albums as they continue to come out each year. Prince has a built-in sales pool of millions of buyers who recognize the genius present- any album he sells automatically sells -at worst- more than any the majority of other artists on the charts, on their best days- despite being "blackballed" by the recording industry and radio industry as a whole. While the bands of today will be forgotten in twenty or thirty years (if not sooner), new Prince albums will be coming out for up to the next 100 years or longer. Prince's music will continue to be studied in leading universities of music even 500 years and longer from now. In a thousand years, there will still be Prince music played. There's only a single handful of bands or musicians for which this is true.

And at some point in the future not too far down the road, artists are going to look back at Prince's role in standing up to the recording industry, radio industry and lawlessness of the internet and say, "without him, we'd be screwed."

So thank you Prince, for your leadership and genius- some of us are smart enough to recognize and appreciate it- and want you to keep on fighting for your rights, so we can all win in the end.