Chris Hadfield's out-of-this-world cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity is now back on YouTube
Commander Chris Hadfield did many incredible things during his time aboard the International Space Station, but one of the most memorable was his cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity.
The video was posted to YouTube and got more than 23 million views and Bowie described it as “possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created”.
However after a year, the video was pulled due to licence agreements.
Now after many months of negotiations (since May 2014), the video is back for everyone to enjoy again.
Canadian astronaut Hadfield explained in a blog post that “it was with some regret that we took the Space Oddity video off YouTube last May”, but added that David Bowie and his publisher had been "very gracious" to allow his intellectual property to be made freely available for that time.
“The day we took the video down, we started to work again to get permission to get it re-posted,” he explains, but the legal process was particularly complex because the song was recorded in space and then published on YouTube where it could be streamed in many countries around the world.
“The Space Station was built by 15 countries, and depending on where I floated while singing and playing, whose copyright laws applies? Which Space Agency owned the recording? Whose jurisdiction was I in?” Hadfield added, citing an Economist article on the complexity of space copyright.
So sit back and enjoy the soothing tones of Mr Hadfield as he sings from his former 'office' 240 miles above the surface of the Earth.
