The Tale of Prince, Radiohead and a Youtube Video

Author: Vince | Date: May 31, 2008

Prince, the master of reinvention, and following a recent string of internet only and free releases, one of the artists I though had really grasped the new direction of the music industry, until recently… You see, Prince seems to have had another crazy snap, and has demanded that any videos containing even a small snippet of his music be taken down from Youtube. That’s live performances, music videos, even peoples holiday footage if there any of his music in the background… This included the above video of Prince performing a cover of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ at this years Coachella festival. But when Radiohead’s front man, Thom Yorke, caught wind of this he contacted youtube and demanded the video was restored, saying:-

“Really? He’s blocked it?” asked Yorke, who figured it was their song to block or not. “Surely, we should block it. Hang on a moment.”

Yorke added: “Well, tell him to unblock it. It’s our … song.”

So, do I see a copyright debate forming here? Exactly who owns the rights to the song? Radiohead for writing it? Or Prince for changing a few lyrics and playing it live?

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1 Comment »

Comment by SmellyGeekBoy
2008-05-31 14:12:34

Hmmm…. As Prince is generally a guitar legend, I was actually expecting that to be a pretty good cover. Oh well.

It seems strange that he’d be so controlling over videos of his performances appearing on the internet as, like you say, he’s been giving a lot of his music away for free recently. It’s also interesting to think about who really owns the rights to this video.

I suppose Radiohead and Prince both have a controlling stake, as a lot of what makes Prince Prince is his image, which he’s well known for exercising pretty tight control over. Plus, if you appeared in a video on the internet that you didn’t agree to, you’d have the right to have it taken down too.

Strange that he’d do this at all though – it’s all good publicity for him to have his image and music splashed around everywhere it can get, really.

Finally, have you heard Tears For Fears’ cover of this song? It’s much better – not as good as Autofelacio’s though, I’m afraid.

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