Prince hates his fans.

His lawyers have forced his three biggest internet fansites to remove all photographs, images, lyrics, album covers and anything linked to the artist's likeness. A legal letter asks the fansites to provide "substantive details of the means by which you propose to compensate our clients [Paisley Park Entertainment Group, NPG Records and AEG] for damages".
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They added that the "cease and desist" notices went as far as calling for the removal of pictures taken by fans of their Prince tattoos and their vehicles carrying Prince-inspired licence plates.

http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/ ... 60,00.html

I guess there's two sides to everything, but these sorts of cases always come across as being somewhat pathetic and extremely egotistical to me; I recall reading that Muhammad Ali's lawyers went after a lot of fansites years ago, forcing them to remove content including photographs from their own private collections. I understand their desire to protect their intellectual property but the way websites are bullied by celebrity's lawyers is a sad sight to see, a slap in the face of the people who hold said individual in such reverence (and in the case of someone like Prince, made them famous in the first place).

Alright I'll let the photos of concerts/fights (in the Ali case) slide because i think photog without a press pass or whatever is probably not allowed in most of those cases. But the pics of tatoos? its on the person's body, how can they tell them to take a picture of that down? that makes no sense. Prince has always been a bit crazy but this is too much.

how can people ban web sites from displaying photo's yet no one can do a damn thing about the paparazzi that is a constant plague on celebs and thier home life

Alright I'll let the photos of concerts/fights (in the Ali case) slide because i think photog without a press pass or whatever is probably not allowed in most of those cases.

I suppose it depends whether photography is expressly forbidden; I'm sure video would be. Even so, when a fan isn't profiting from displaying the pictures and is doing so out of admiration of the person in question, it seems like an unnecessarily vindictive move in my opinion.

how can people ban web sites from displaying photo's yet no one can do a damn thing about the paparazzi that is a constant plague on celebs and thier home life

It probably comes down to the conditions of entry into concerts and other events and whether photography is permitted but I agree, it's definitely a weird double standard. There is the occasional celebrity civil suit over tabloid photographs though.

Cool.