Speaking to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the Radiohead frontman hit on a favorite subject: the way that tech companies treat artists and musicians:
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.’
That’s not a bad point! Consumers want high quality products for nothing or next to nothing and companies like Spotify, Google, and YouTube are helping them.
But Yorke doesn’t stop there. He continues:
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?
I think the last question is meant to be rhetorical but I’ll answer it by simply saying, there’s a difference! Not just in the fact that this art was stolen from its owners not its creators but in, uh, context too.
But the bigger point is this: Don’t compare things to Nazi Germany unless the comparison is air tight (and even then, you probably shouldn’t do it). Nazi Germany comparisons are katamaris: They envelop everything they touch.