Radiohead or Prince: Who Gets to Decide over "Creep" Cover Video being Posted?

When rumor had it that Prince covered Radiohead's "Creep" at Coachella, there were quite a few those who wanted to check that out on YouTube. Even Radiohead seemed was thrilled with the news. But soon something else rather intriguing happened. No one could access the material online.

The videos containing Prince's unique performance of Radiohead's well-known song had been removed pretty swiftly – there was only a message left acknowledging NPG Records (which Prince founded in 1993) as “responsible” for this on account of copyright infringement. What turned this into a …debate was the fact that the posted videos were shot by fans and, of course, the song wasn’t Prince's to start with.

Radiohead thought it should actually be them the ones to decide whether Prince's version of their song gets posted or not (which only appears to be logical).

Thom Yorke found it hard to believe when his bandmate, guitarist Ed O'Brien, told him about the blocking.

"Really? He's blocked it?"
"Surely we should block it. Hang on a moment."
Then Yorke said: "Well, tell him to unblock it. It's our … song."

YouTube doesn’t allow any copyrighted content being posted. In case a copyright holder complaints to the site, it will generally take the video(s) down. However in this case (where NPG Records does not own the copyright) things are not so simple andYorke's argument seems to be consistent with YouTube's policies.

Link to the video