Prince is to sue YouTube - in a bid “to reclaim his art on the internet”.

Prince is launching legal action against Google Inc. - who
own the video-sharing website - for copyright breach, in an effort to
end the unauthorized use of clips of his performances and music videos.

A statement released on the star’s behalf, said: “Prince believes that as an
artist, the music rights must remain with the artist and copyrights should
be protected across the board.”

The singer added that he could not accept YouTube had no control over
what clips were posted on the site.

The statement continued: “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.”

YouTube insists it will work with the artist to monitor what music content
appears on the site.

The website’s chief lawyer, Zahavah Levine, said: “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.”

Prince also plans to sue online auctioneers eBay and Pirate Bay, who are
accused of encouraging music piracy.

The ‘Controversy’ singer has instructed Web Sheriff, a British-based company
specializing in policing the Internet for pirated content, to act on his
behalf.

John Giacobbi, managing director of Web Sheriff, said: “Prince’s actions are
a brave and pioneering step to challenge the status quo and hand control
over internet rights back to the artists.”

Prince is no stranger to taking on huge companies for the sake of his
musical ownership.

In the 90s, he was involved in a contractual dispute with his record label
Warner Bros, who he accused of stifling his creative freedom by limiting the
amount of albums he could release.

The battle led to Prince changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol
until 2000 when he was free of all contractual obligations to the company.

During the dispute, he famously would only appear in public with the word
‘Slave’ scrawled across his face.