Prince’s estate is filing a lawsuit in federal court against Massachusetts native, Kian Andrew Habib, for illegally uploading the rock legend’s music on to YouTube.
Habib, who’s known as PersianCeltic on YouTube, uploaded six live bootleg recordings of Prince concerts to the platform. All of these concerts took place in December 2013, during a three-night run at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. More specifically, the songs that are subject to the lawsuit are “Nothing Compares 2 U,” “Take Me With U,” Glam Slam,” “Sign o’ the Times,” “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” and “Hot Thing.”
One of the videos, “Prince showing off all his talents! LIVE at Mohegan Sun, Connecticut 2013 HD,” which features a mashup of “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” and “Hot Thing,” is still on Habib’s channel. The rest have been deleted.
Habib, who currently has 444 subscribers, has dedicated his YouTube channel to posting concert videos from a wide variety of artists; including Paramore, Arcade Fire, Lorde, Nine Inch Nails and more.
The lawsuit, which was filed on Dec. 7, takes issue the use of advertisements. According to Hypebot, Habib’s videos of Prince included advertisements — which meant Habib was gaining revenue off of them.
Comerica Bank & Trust, the holders of Prince’s estate, then filed a complaint. “[T]he Infringing Videos were posted for commercial purposes, at least because Habib received or attempted to receive advertising revenue associated with views of the Infringing Videos by others,” the company said in the complaint, via TubeFilter. “Each of the Infringing Videos negatively impacts the market for authorized uses of the Prince Works, for example, by directing YouTube viewers and associated advertising revenue away from authorized videos of the Prince Works and towards the Infringing Videos.”
Prince had a reputation for being extremely protective of his work. When he passed away on April 21, 2016 the court ruled that his sister and five half-siblings would be his heirs.
Craig Smith and Eric Carnevale of Land & Anastasia are representing Comerica Bank & Trust. Habib declined to comment.