From webuser.co.uk:
Prince is in talks with a group of unofficial fan sites with a view to settling a copyright dispute.
After last week referring to three websites that had unified under the banner Prince Fans United as “unofficial and unauthorised phoney fan sites that exploit both consumers and artists,” Prince’s representatives are in negotiations that could see some kind of settlement between the two parties.
“We can now confirm that talks are underway to resolve matters pertaining to the online fan communities that recently formed under the coalition banner of ‘Prince Fans United’,” read a statement from the websites.
“Everyone involved now wishes to move on towards a more harmonious future, where the protection of artists’ rights and the freedoms of fan forums can happily co-exist. We are working towards a position where mutually-acceptable guidelines can be agreed upon for unofficial fan sites,” the statement continued.
The tone of the message was very different to a statement posted last week that said: “The wildly inaccurate statement that “Prince is not suing his fans” and referring to the Prince Fans United sites as “phoney”, is confusing, libellous and misleading.”
Last week, Web User reported that Prince was pursuing a number of websites and had employed an organisation called Web Sheriff to issue legal notices on his behalf.
One of the websites, b3ta.com, made an apology to Prince and asked its visitors to stop posting entries to a competition it had started with the intention of satirising the diminuitive pop star.
The Pirate Bay, a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing network that has been accused of breaching copyright rules in the past was also a target for Prince and Web Sheriff.
“[The Pirate Bay] are in fact exploiting copyrighted material for their own commercial gain. The site has flouted constant legal notices from artists and corporations throughout the world while cashing in on advertising monies. All the time, they keep up the pretence of being an anarchist, ‘free music’ fan site when it is really a massive money-making venture,” said AEG, Prince’s promoters, in a statement.
