When Prince’s fans express distaste for how the musician’s estate is handling his legacy, they’re really only echoing his concerns about his musical legacy. Anyone who remembers his reaction to the dawning of the internet age would readily agree with that.

Prince was notoriously guarded when it came to the whens and whys of the commercial use of his music and was strongly opposed to the notion of others making money off his image and logos. Notoriously, he sued several fan websites in 2007 for breach of copyright for using images of him. He also tried to sue YouTube and other video-sharing websites for posting his music videos. The suits were later settled in an undisclosed fashion. In 2014, he sued several fans and Facebook itself for $22 million for allowing music lovers to trade bootleg recordings of his live shows; the suit was soon dropped.

Times have changed since the artist’s untimely passing in 2016. One can easily find his work on Spotify and view his music videos on YouTube — and that’s mainly due to his estate’s choices — an estate that’s currently embroiled in a legal battle over who ought to be in charge. Some things never change.

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