U.S. pop star Prince plans to sue YouTube and other major Web sites
for unauthorized use of his music in a bid to "reclaim his art on
the Internet."
Prince said on Thursday that YouTube could not argue it had no
control over which videos users posted on its site.
"YouTube ... are clearly able (to) filter porn and pedophile
material but appear to choose not to filter out the unauthorized
music and film content which is core to their business success," a
statement released on his behalf said.
YouTube responded by saying it was working with artists to help them
manage their music on the site.
"Most content owners understand that we respect copyrights, we work
every day to help them manage their content, and we are developing
state-of-the-art tools to let them do that even better," said
YouTube chief counsel Zahavah Levine.
"We have great partnerships with major music labels all over the
world that understand the benefit of using YouTube as another way to
communicate with their fans."
In addition to YouTube, Prince plans legal action against online
auctioneer eBay and Pirate Bay, a site accused by Hollywood and the
music industry as being a major source of music and film piracy.