Prince Estate Sued for Allegedly Ruining Man's Reputation with Lawsuit Over YouTube Videos

Prince’s estate is being sued by the man they sued for posting concert videos of the late singer and he claims they ruined his reputation by making false allegations he was a bootlegger.

Last year, the estate filed a federal lawsuit against a man named Kian Andrew Habib. They accused him of posting five different videos of the late singer performing live on YouTube.

The lawsuit said Habib posted performances of the songs, “Nothing Compares 2 U,” “Take Me With U,” “Glam Slam,” “Sign o’ The Times,” “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World,” and “Hot Thing.”

The estate claimed to have filed notices with YouTube to remove the videos but Habib contested the removal, which led to them filing suit.

On July 2, Habib fired back at Prince’s estate and the lawsuit, denying all allegations of wrongdoing and counter-suing them.

Habib admits he posted the videos on YouTube but says he never infringed on any copyright. He claims he didn't profit from the uploads and denies he participated in any bootlegging, piracy or counterfeiting.

In his counter-suit against the estate, Habib says he attended a 2013 Prince concert in Connecticut. He says his tickets were only rows away from the stage and he recorded small portions of the performance on his camera phone.

He points out that many other concertgoers were also using camera phones to record the show and says he posted the videos months after the show. Habib then attended another concert in Canada and was close to the stage again. He shot videos again and posted them later.

“Even if the Estate, had marketed or sought to market videos of the same concerts that are referenced in the Habib Videos," he writes,

"the allegation would still be demonstrably false because the Habib Videos are clearly of amateurish quality, containing scenes and sounds of other concertgoers, among other things, have poor audio and video quality, contain very small portions of concerts whose average total length was approximately three hours, and, otherwise have no commercial value whatsoever.”

Habib accuses the estate of trying to make an example out of him in an effort to deter others from posting videos of Prince performances.

He says the estate has tarnished his reputation with the false accusations in the complaint, which have been picked up by the media.

Habib is seeking unspecified damages.

The case is ongoing.