New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Thom Yorke has made his feelings towards YouTube and its parent company Google known in a frank interview. During a talk with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the Radiohead frontman spoke out against the practice of YouTube placing adverts before the start of videos and said that the online service has "seized control" of art in order to make a profit.
"A friend of mine told me about this app to skip commercials on YouTube... They put advertising before any content, making a lot of money and yet, artists are not paid or are paid small sums, and apparently this is fine for them...
I don't have the solution to these problems. I only know that they're making money with the work of loads of artists who don't get any benefit from it. People continue to say that this is an era where music is free, cinema is free. It's not true. The creators of services make money - Google, YouTube. A huge amount of money, by trawling, like in the sea - they take everything there is. 'Oh, sorry, was that yours? Now it's ours. No, no, we're joking - it's still yours'. They've seized control of it - it's like what the Nazis did during the second World War. Actually, it's like what everyone was doing during the war, even the English - stealing the art of other countries. What difference is there?"
Thom Yorke recently revealed that he was blackmailed by Tony Blair's advisors in response to a request for help with raising awareness about climate change.
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