Girls and boys shell out for Prince
Updated on 21 September 2007
Tickets for the final show of Prince's marathon UK run are changing hands for up to £600 each with fans hoping for something special at the gig.
The purple one has played 21 shows and bows out later at London's O2 arena. On Thursday night, he paid homage to Led Zeppelin, playing one of their songs.
So far, special guests have included Sir Elton John and Will.i.am from Black Eyed Peas.
The pint-sized singer has also played a clutch of aftershows - funking for an extra two hours.
Fans are said to be planning a mass display of purple glo-sticks to impress their hero.
However, Prince is now taking legal action over YouTube over unauthorised use of his music after fans at the shows posted clips on the video-sharing site.
He is launching legal action in a bid to "reclaim his art on the internet" and wants to ban any unauthorised video clips taken of his performances.
Prince is believed to be the first major artist to do battle with the online giant.
"These are steps that the ever innovative Prince is taking to reclaim his art on the internet," a spokesman for the star said.
"Prince believes strongly that as an artist the music rights must remain with the artist and thus copyrights should be protected across the board.
"Very few artists have ever taken this kind of action over their rights. Yet Prince has showed time and time again he is ready to challenge the system in new ways to put artists and music first."
John Giacobbi, managing director of Web Sheriff, said: "Some artists are very relaxed about the use of their image and music on the Internet, some less so.
"Prince feels very strongly that people should remember his concerts as they were, not as some grainy mobile phone footage."
He went on: "The vast majority of artists have little or no control over their rights on the internet, with piracy rampant and very little regulation.
"Prince's actions are a brave and pioneering step to challenge the status quo and hand control over Internet rights back to the artists."
Web Sheriff has succeeded in taking more than 1,000 unauthorised Prince video clips off YouTube in the past few days, some of them from the O2 gigs.
But Mr Giacobbi said: "As soon as they are taken down, more spring up the next day. The onus is on the artists as opposed to YouTube itself.
"There is zero pornography on YouTube because it is filtered out. It would be perfectly feasible for them to filter out unauthorised music material, but they choose not to do this.
"At the end of the day, if you take copyrighted music and film off YouTube, most of its business would be gone."
Prince is also targeting eBay, amongst others, for selling unauthorised merchandise.
Mr Giacobbi said: "We are not targeting fans who might want to sell their copy of Purple Rain, we are targeting companies in China manufacturing Prince handbags and selling them in their thousands. There is a distinction to be drawn there."
Earlier this week, a surprise gig by the singer at Matthew Williamson's show added extra sparkle to London Fashion Week.
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