Prince Files Lawsuit Against Music Bootleggers on Facebook

The pop star is targeting a Facebook group and a Blogspot account that hosted links to copyrighted live performances

Prince is suing a group of fans on Facebook and other internet bloggers who posted links to downloads of his live concerts from the 80s. Named in the lawsuit are 22 individuals who face a damage claim totaling $22 million. The defendants “engaged in massive infringement and bootlegging of Prince’s material,” explains the complaint filed in US District Court in San Francisco.

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Dan Chodera and Karina Jindrova, who are named in the lawsuit, were the webmasters of a Facebook group that offered links to Prince concert bootlegs for download to fellow fans and other music aficionados.

“Defendants, rather than publishing lawful content to their blogs, typically publish posts that list all the songs performed at a certain Prince live show and then provide a link to a file sharing service where unauthorized copies of the performance can be downloaded,” the lawsuit reads.

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Prince says that the Facebook group, as well as the website WorldOfBootleg.blogspot.com, featured over 363 copyright infringing music file links to performances from his concerts and the perpetrators should pay up. The R&B performer is also asking for a permanent injunction to stop these users from violating his copyrights any further from this point forward.

Prince is notorious for protecting his copyright with an iron fist. Most famously, in 2007, the artist went after a mother who uploaded a 29-second YouTube video of her baby dancing to his hit “Let’s Go Crazy.”

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