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Charley Rogulewski
Charley Rogulewski
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Radiohead Start Beef With Prince Over Coachella

Posted about 1 year ago
For those of you Moggers who were at Coachella this year, you most likely heard Prince's take on Radiohead's "Creep"? Unfortunately for the rest of the world, Prince, as usual took down all footage of his Coachella performance captured by fans and uploaded on the net off YouTube almost immediately. The Purple One has always been uptight about copyright laws and footage of his being made available to the public, whether recorded by fans or not. Just check out my Coachella recap post from April ...the Prince video is the only video that was taken down.Anyway, when Radiohead caught wind of Prince's cover of THEIR song frontman Thom Yorke and Co. wanted to watch it, only to find that it had been pulled down by Prince's peeps from YouTube. "Really? He's blocked it?" Yorke told the AP of his response to the situation. "Surely we should block it...Well, tell him to unblock it. It's our ... song."

And Mr.Yorke has a point. YouTube prohibits the posting of copyrighted material. So if a copyright owner complains about infringement, YouTube will take the video down. But according to international copyright laws performers have the right to prevent the broadcast or communication to the public of their performance, unless this is made from a legally published recording of the performance. Clapclap.com (thanks Sterogum for the tip) also claims that "Prince is not covering Radiohead here. He is, rather, making "Creep" a Prince song, which is to say he is bringing it within the Prince scheme of rhetoric."Now for those of you Moggers at Coachella, you might recall Prince changed the lyrics "You're so fucking special" to "I think that you're special.""That "fucking" is key, because it's supposed to sound snide," says those crazies at Clapclap.com. "It's an insult. Prince, on the other hand, does not say "fucking." And not just because he doesn't swear anymore; he could have said what Thom goes with in the radio edit, which is "very." Instead, he changes the entire line, and in doing, he changes the entire meaning of the line."Its all pretty ridiculous. Anyone who was there please dish and let us know if you think that Yorke is right about the whole thing? Or did Prince indeed re-write the song and make it his own?For more details head to "Stereogum.":http://stereogum.com/archives/prince-is-being-a-creep-radiohead-tell-him-hes-a-l_010102.html#more

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Comments (23)

  1. The Black and White Years
    The Black and White Years says This reminds me of the battle between Vanilla Ice and Queen/David Bowie with "Under Pressure"...Ice claimed his song was nothing like "Pressure" cause there was an extra 'ding' in the "Ice Ice Baby" chorus...totally different right? totally bull!
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  2. Charley Rogulewski
    Charley Rogulewski says I think this is a case of fire fight with fire...Yorke seems to know a thing or two about copyright laws, as does Prince. In this case I believe Yorke is SOOOOO right on! Prince has got to put that video back up on the YouTube for Radiohead and the rest of the world to enjoy!
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  3. Cody B
    Cody B says If he's claiming that made it a re-write and this ended up in court, I think Prince would lose. I love that man and I believe he is a talented musician and more than likely a genius,but when it comes to his business related dealings,I believe he's misguided almost all the time. You be the judge
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  4. sonical
    sonical says Wonder where the rights to the artist image comes in here. if the Purple Man is performing it, can he ask to have his image taken down?
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  5. contrabandwidth
    contrabandwidth says The backbone of new media is based on reuse, aggregation, and hits. The old copyright laws do not apply to new media. This basically becomes a "he said, he said" argument, with YouTube bowing to the pressure of an artist. No one is going to take away more than what is offered by a shitty phone cam recording of a performance. Might as well leave it up, and let people at least view it. You can't control your image anymore if your famous.
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  6. TroyPowers
    TroyPowers says I was going to say the exact same thing as sonical. If he can't block it because of the song, I'm sure he can block it because of his image. Was it a good cover anyway?
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  7. Cody B
    Cody B says See that red dot troy▲▲
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  8. TroyPowers
    TroyPowers says Glad you pointed that out before Prince found it.
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  9. Cody B
    Cody B says hurry quick the purple police are always on the look out.
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  10. Charley Rogulewski
    Charley Rogulewski says i just did some research and i guess there's an international law saying the artist has the right to take down a live performance, whether its a cover or etc... except when its already been offered on a dvd or etc..
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  11. Cody B
    Cody B says I mean I can see him being within his legal rights Charley..But to make your loyal fans out to be injuring him by adoring him is a bit much. Thinking that records labels are evil is one thing, but your biggest fans?
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  12. Charley Rogulewski
    Charley Rogulewski says yeah i can't stand it either...i think he just wants everyone to join his NPG music club
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  13. david hyman
    david hyman says this is awesome. princes people came to MOG and told us to take down a bootleg. we didn't have the bootleg. it was just in someone's collection and displayed by mogomatic. we said, "we're not going to take down metadata that the bootleg exists!" geez. this is great. go radiohead. go radiohead. go radiohead. go radiohead.go radiohead. go radiohead.go radiohead. go radiohead.go radiohead. go radiohead.go radiohead. go radiohead.go radiohead. go radiohead.
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  14. Cody B
    Cody B says It isn't often I would side with Radiohead..but I'm there with them on this one. I wish I could hear what the Prince side thinks..
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  15. Lyrikhan
    Lyrikhan says sheesh and whatever i say
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  16. Lyrikhan
    Lyrikhan says and go Radiohead
    Permalink posted 05/30/2008
  17. kaluss
    kaluss says propers to radiohead and propers to the folks who run mog....they got our back when it comes to "letting music fill the air"
    Permalink posted 05/31/2008
  18. Thorn In My Slide
    Thorn In My Slide says Even if Prince has reworked the lyrics in "Creep" he does not have the right to release it publicly without the consent of Radiohead. Thanks for the update.
    Permalink posted 05/31/2008
  19. Jonh Ingham
    Jonh Ingham says Hyman's comment cracked me up - until it occurred to me I may well be the culprit with a bootleg. Prince should just get over it. In some ways he's so in tune with the times and in other ways he's as bad as the record companies. Which is ironic. On the copyright tip, Prince's performance is the copyright that takes precedent in this case and if he don't want it on air, then Thom Yorke will just have to find out what it sounds like from another source.
    Permalink posted 06/01/2008
  20. dangerdot
    dangerdot says sorry Charley, i'm coming in a little late on this, but this whole thing just makes me laugh...or scoff rather...for a number of reasons. mostly b/c Prince can just suck it.
    Permalink posted 06/01/2008
  21. kaluss
    kaluss says absent this situation, though, i have been a huge prince fan for a long friggin' time. his purple majesty is a visionary....joking aside, this is sort of a clash of two uber talented artists who are barely in the same stratosphere with most artists today....in my opinion.
    Permalink posted 06/01/2008
  22. Scotch
    Scotch says Sure, Prince is a talented fella, but he can be such a douchebag sometimes. And he didn't make "Creep" his own by any stretch. I would go as far as to say that it's actually not quite as good as the original.
    Permalink posted 06/02/2008
  23. KathyG
    KathyG says This would be a very interesting court case and I was thinking a lot about this.. that song was definitely a cover.. changing one word does not have it NOT be a cover.. yes, Prince put his flare on it, but the melody was the same.. this was a COVER. I'm sure that Prince's lawyers will have a field day with this one, but what I find even more hilarious, is that, if you "know" Thom, I think he's doing this just to fuck with Prince. It's not like Radiohead gets any residuals from it playing on YouTube, other than more people hear the song and may go out and buy albums, but come on.. you can't get more opposite of Prince than Radiohead :) I love the both of them, but Prince is being a bit whiny on this one.
    Permalink posted 06/03/2008

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