YouTube Video of Prince Performing Radiohead’s Creep Censored Because of Copyright
At the Coachella music festival in April, Prince performed Radiohead’s song Creep. As fans often do, many posted videos of the performance to the video site YouTube. Because of the copyright issue of Prince performing Radiohead’s song without the appropriate legal rights, Prince’s record label censored the videos on YouTube. Radiohead hasn’t even been able to see the performance, though they wanted to. In a CNN interview, Thom Yorke, Radiohead’s lead vocalist, expressed surprise that Prince blocked it, figuring that since it’s their song, they have the right to decide whether to censor it. “Well, tell him to unblock it. It’s our … song.”
Radiohead has done some innovative actions regarding music distribution over the Internet recently, including allowing people to download their album In Rainbows for however much money they wanted to spend on it, including nothing.
The situation really raises the question about who has the right to block videos on sites like YouTube and under what circumstances.
As seen on Babbledog
