The artist formerly known as Prince has decided to “reclaim the Internet and he is preparing to file lawsuits against YouTube, EBay and the BitTorrent tracking site The Pirate Bay.

According to his claims the three websites are allegedly encouraging copyright violations. Prince hired a firm called Web Sheriff to track the Web searching for pirated material and send "take-down notices" to sites that are hosting it.

Also in a statement released on his behalf Prince said that YouTube is violating its copyrights by choosing not to filter the content submitted by users.

"YouTube ... are clearly able (to) filter porn and pedophile material but appear to choose not to filter out the unauthorised music and film content which is core to their business success," the statement reads.

"Prince strongly believes artists as the creators and owners of their music need to reclaim their art," the statement added.

Also John Giacobbi, Web Sheriff's president said that in the last weeks YouTube removed about 2,000 infringing, but “the next day, there are 100 or 200 more”.

In an interview with Reuters Giacobbi said that his firm had removed around 300 items from eBay, where whole lines of pirated goods trading on Prince's name had appeared, including clocks, socks, mugs and key rings.

Since Metallica has sued Napster in 2001, this is the first time when an artist is launching a legal bid in order to protect his copyright rights and the statement released by Prince noted this aspect.

"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.” the statement reads.

Prince is also the first famous artist that is criticizing YouTube over its copyright policy. The video sharing site was already sued by Viacom earlier this year.