Thom Yorke compares YouTube to Nazi Germany: “What difference is there?”

Shortly after being freaked out by the clang of a bell, Thom Yorke has compared online giants YouTube and Google to Nazi Germany’s policy on the arts during the Second World War.

In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the Radiohead frontman discussed music’s current struggle in an online environment.

“People continue to say that this is an era where music is free, cinema is free,” he said. “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?”

Asked how musicians make a profit from streaming, he replied: “I don’t know, you tell me.” He added: “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.”