Prince covers Radiohead at Coachella

“Radiohead to Prince: Hey that’s OUR song,” via CNN.

Prince covered Radiohead’s Creep at Coachella, then his label blocked all fan videos of the rendition on youtube, claiming copyright violations. CNN dismisses these claims first because the videos are fan videos, and second, because the song actually belongs to Radiohead. While I have nothing to add from a legal standpoint, I do have to say it’s confusing to me that a label would think it’s in their best interest to remove user-produced content which features their artist from the internet. Isn’t it like free promotion? Really, I can’t understand the business logic here…Unless they plan to release the performance on DVD and they want to protect their market, it makes no sense to me that this could be a problem. It actually sounds like a good thing that people want to watch and talk about the artist whose records they hope to sell…

And since Prince’s version of Creep is nowhere to be found on the internetz, here’s Radiohead’s, just for those who haven’t been playing Rockband lately and need a reminder 😉