Off the record: Web Sheriff is watching you

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Calling the tune: Prince has used Web Sheriff to remove audience-filmed clips of his set from the internet

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The next time you unholster your phone at a concert with the intention of filming and posting the results on YouTube, watch out for the Web Sheriff. In the lawless Wild West that is the internet, a London-based company is dispensing justice on behalf of some of the world's biggest stars — and quickest on the draw is John Giacobbi, an ex-music industry lawyer who is employed by musicians to purge the internet of leaked tracks and copyrighted material.

Van Morrison is gearing up to play his classic album, Astral Weeks, at the Albert Hall this month but you'll struggle to find more than a handful of official clips of the man on YouTube. That's the work of the Web Sheriff. Numerous Van fansites, too, have been scrubbed: “Sincere thanks to Van fans everywhere for your patronage and support during the past 13 years (1995-2008),” says the forlorn remains of http://van-the-man.info.

Prince, who gained valuable publicity during his 21 shows at the O2 Arena in 2007, promptly lost much of that goodwill by using Web Sheriff to rid the internet of more than 1,000 audience-filmed clips of his set. Now fans are required to pay a $77 annual subscription to access official Prince material at his newly launched and reportedly disappointing site www.lotusflow3r.com. Something similar is likely to happen when Michael Jackson plays his 50 nights at the same venue this summer.

Although we have become used to the biggest acts being the most litigious, younger bands who might be expected to be better friends with the web have also allied with the Sheriff. Franz Ferdinand, Animal Collective — who owe much of their success to enthusiastic bloggers — and even Arctic Monkeys, who found fame when fans started sharing their demos online, have all used him to safeguard new material.

Giacobbi's techniques aren't brutal. “We try to use a tempered approach,” he has says. He wants to be your friend. A Web Sheriff-produced video on The Prodigy's YouTube channel tells fans what's “cool” and what's “uncool” to post. Music blogging sites are littered with comments with the Sheriff's contact details at the top, thanking bloggers for obeying the rules.

The fans don't always react well to these pats on the back, believing them to be a chummy way of saying, “I've got my eye on you”.

Getting on his bad side is no fun, as Edward Droste, blogger and member of the band Grizzly Bear, revealed when he published the letter he received after sharing what he thought was a freely available Animal Collective track: “This is no laughing matter and should you refuse or otherwise fail to comply with the above request [to remove the shared track from his blog and publish an apology], we would ask you to simply provide us with the details of the US attorneys, UK solicitors, French and German avocats whom you would instruct in relation to the service of such multi-jurisdictional proceedings as shall ensue.”

“The Web Sheriff is just doing his job,” conceded Droste, and we're all aware of the damage internet file sharing is doing to album sales.

But the music industry's problem is its inability to distinguish between cynical heavyweight pirates and individuals who simply want to enthuse publicly about their favourite band. Even the company name, Web Sheriff, effectively criminalises everyone, alienating fans while it helps the bands.

In reality, the only voices the fans seem to respect are those of the musicians themselves. Many acts are already working harder to cultivate a direct relationship with their audience through forums and social networking. A polite request from the horse's mouth could have a more positive result than third party threats.

But if the Web Sheriff can rid the world of one thing — people holding their phones aloft at gigs so that no one behind them can see — we'll all have a reason to thank him.

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