If you’ve been keeping up with the Purple One’s activities as of late, you would think the Artist Formerly Known As A Symbol was unleashing his dogs of law on everyone within his royal line of sight. Mainstream media, music blogs, gossip sites and even technology-oriented publications were reporting that Prince was suing his fans, citing copyright and trademark infringements upon his image, music and person.

It all started last week when the creators of three Prince fan sites – Princefams.com, Housequake and Prince.org – joined together to create PrinceFansUnited.com, claiming that their idol was threatening them with legal action for alleged infringements.

“In an extraordinary, but not unfamiliar move, the rock legend Prince is using an army of lawyers to launch attacks on his own fans,” read the site’s November 5 posting. “Several of the largest Web communities dedicated to the artist have received notices to cease and desist all use of photographs, images, lyrics, album covers, and anything linked to Prince’s likeness. It is our belief that these threats are not made in an attempt to enforce valid copyright as Prince alleges in his threats, rather we believe they are attempts to stifle all critical commentary about Prince.”

The posting goes on to say Prince’s lawyers had “demanded removal of fans’ own photographs of their Prince-inspired tattoos and their vehicles displaying Prince-inspired license plates,” and that “Prince’s representatives have requested that the fan sites provide them with ‘substantive details of the means by which you [the fan sites] propose to compensate our clients [Paisley Park Enterprises, NPG Records and the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG)] for damages …”

Sounds pretty serious, doesn’t it?

But even though a cease and desist order is not the same as an actual lawsuit, the media quickly jumped on the meme that Prince was suing his fans.

“Prince wants to sue his fans, undo the Internet” was the message on Salon.com. “Prince Moves To Sue Fan Sites” appeared on Reuters.com on November 7 and cnet.com went with the headline “Prince: The Artist Who Formerly Liked The Internet.”

So, is he? That is, is Prince suing the fan sites?

Not at this time although it appears that someone repping His Funkiness did issue legal docs to the sites in question. But was that someone Prince?

While Reuters ran with headline claiming Prince was suing fan sites, the news service quoted Web Sheriff’s John Giacobbi as saying, “At no time is Prince suing his fans and this is not about freedom of speech.”

The same article quotes Giacobbi as saying the C&Ds did not come from Prince, but from his record label.

That Web Sheriff, an Internet company specializing in protecting its clients’ copyrights and trademarks, is working for Prince is well known. Only a few days before the lawsuit debacle broke in the press, the media reported how Prince had hired Web Sheriff to track down those who would infringe upon his good name.

But Giacobbi’s remarks still didn’t quiet the “Prince is suing fans” theme which by that time had been picked up by media in virtually every country on the planet. So another Prince associate had to step in to try to clear things up.

That associate was AEG, which promoted Prince’s September London shows.

“The action taken earlier this week was not to shut down fansites, or control comment in any way,” read AEG’s statement. “The issue was simply to do with in regards to copyright and trademark of images and only images and no lawsuits have been filed.”

However, sometimes an attempt to put out one fire causes others to erupt. In this case it was another sentence in the same AEG statement mentioning Prince releasing some free material online, stating that the action was bypassing “phony fan sites that exploit both consumers and artists.”

Uh? Phony fan sites? What’s up with that?

You have to go back to PrinceFansUnited.com for an answer. In a posting dated the same day as the AEG statement, the fans behind the fan sites said the “phony” remark was an error on the part of Prince’s PR firm.

“Not only is this statement confusing, libelous and misleading,” reads the November 9 posting on PrinceFansUnited.com, “we have actually been informed by Prince’s representatives that his PR company sent this in error last night and it has been picked up by a few key media organisations today.”

So, despite what you may have read during the past week or so, Prince is not suing fan sites. In fact, a November 8 posting on PrinceFansUnited.com says the fan site operators are in talks with Prince’s management and that they hope to reach “an amicable resolution.”

But an “amicable resolution” doesn’t circulate nearly as fast as “Prince suing fans” zoomed the globe only days earlier. By now most people probably think Prince has it in for his fans. And no matter how erroneous that theme may be, that’s the one that’s going to stick in people’s heads for a long time to come.