Booty call: Music has-beens line up to sue The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay is no stranger to intrigue. We reported last November that the captains of the Bay were being pursued by none other than Prince, and they even told us they were being spied on by strange people in foreign cars. Agents of the Purple One?

Prince wants his day in court, but as recently as November, Prince's gameplan was to go after The Pirate Bay's revenue source. The copyright crusader formerly known as an artist has inspired others to consider battling the Bay, as it looks like The Village People, ABBA, and other has-beens are considering using The Pirate Bay's recent indictment in Sweden as a chance to grab headlines and some cash. The news was first reported by Swedish news site E24.

Prince and The Village People are committed to pursuing a legal decision against The Pirate Bay for substantial sums of money. In a statement, John Giacobbi of Web Sheriff, who would work with these artists in securing local representation in Sweden, said, "We're looking at damages of millions of dollars, and we will file in both US and Swedish courts." Giacobbi is also reaching out to ABBA, Van Morrison, and others to join the quest for "damages."

The quest for damages may be misguided, however, as The Pirate Bay likely does not have millions to pay out. Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay told Ars that prosecutors' claims that the site earns more than US$3 million year are false. Sunde suggested that the site operates at a loss owing to the substantial cost of bandwidth, hardware, and powering servers. If you ask us, ads for human pheremones (the only kind we ever see on the 'Bay these days) can't be bringing in that much money (can they??). It's hard to imagine a Swedish court serving up millions in damages when the Swedish prosecutor leading the government case against The Pirate Bay is only seeking approximately $180,000 in damages, according to the BBC.

TorrentFreak, which is strangely down right now, suggests that the attempt to recruit ABBA into litigation is really aimed at providing a Swedish "counter" to The Pirate Bay on their home turf. We agree with TorrentFreak's analysis: such a move won't work.

In fact, we'd go a bit further. All of these artists/bands risk a backlash, and for what? No one can deny them their right to get their day in court, but such public, high-profile lawsuits are always about more than the application of law. One has only to think of Metallica to realize that damaging one's business is easy to do if the anti-piracy rhetoric isn't carefully managed. Fans can react negatively, so artists have to weigh the risks of looking like they're out to punish fans. This is why industry groups like the RIAA usually lead the charge: they do the dirty work while (most) artists stay aloof.

Prince and The Village People won't stop piracy with their suit, and they might not even recoup any damages. In that respect, this is a "booty call" that carries with it a great deal of PR risk for only a small chance of meaningful reward. It's their battle to wage, but a victory would be pyrrhic at most. Remember, there's already litigation pending against The Pirate Bay.

In related news, we could find all of these artists' music on Tagoo, which just launched. If all of these lawsuits are supposed to be discouraging the opening of new torrent and search sites, it's obviously not working.

Original here