Thom Yorke Compares Google and YouTube to Nazi Germany In New Interview

Photo by Eliot Lee Hazel

Thom Yorke recently conducted an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. During the chat, the Guardian reports, the Radiohead frontman said YouTube and parent company Google had “seized control” of art, then compared their commercial paradigms to Nazi Germany’s history of plundering art. (Yorke’s slung some harsh words against fellow tech giant Spotify in the past, as well.)

Asked how musicians can profit from their music, Yorke responded:

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?

Yorke added that he uses Boomkat to discover music, and has installed an app to block YouTube ads. “The funny thing is that YouTube has said ‘that’s not fair’ [to AdBlocker],” he said. “You know? They say it’s not fair – the people who put adverts in front of any piece of content, making a load of money, while artists don’t get paid or are paid laughable amounts – and that seems fine to them. But if [YouTube] don’t get a profit out of it, it’s not fair.”

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