Radiohead's Thom Yorke is amused that Prince has decided to block his version of their song 'Creep' from YouTube.
Yorke told The Guardian that he heard about it via a text message. "He's blocked it?" Yorke said. "Surely we should block it, Hang on a moment, tell him to unblock it. It's our song".Prince performed Radiohead's first international hit at Coachella in April. The video on YouTube was said to have been uploaded by a fan that took it with a mobile phone camera.
Prince is one artist who has been militant in protecting illegal distributions of his work. While Yorke is correct in saying he owns the copyright of the song, Radiohead does not own the copyright of the Prince performance.
Prince is quite within this legal rights to demand the withdrawal of the video on YouTube. The upload by the fan is a breach of copyright for both Prince and Radiohead.
YouTube's policy is to warn people from uploading illegal content but it does not police it. YouTube will only withdraw video if the copyright owner requests it. That dilemma for the copyright owner is that they may never know its there.
