Video: Chris Hadfield on the complexities of music in microgravity

Astronaut Chris Hadfield’s cover of Bowie’s “Space Oddity” is thought-provoking, visually fascinating, and absolutely worth watching—but it’s far more than just a great cover of a classic song. It’s an inherently human video because it demonstrates the fundamental truth that we are a species of storytellers—and that we remain so whether or not we’re on Earth.

Music is both one of the oldest human traditions and also one of the oldest astronaut traditions. We’ve been taking songs into orbit with us since the 1960s, first transmitted from the ground and then later via tape, CD, and electronic formats. What we sing in space is similar to what we sing on the ground—music fills in the gaps of a day, helps boredom, focuses the mind, diffuses anger, and does a million other things to soothe the homesick spacefarer.

Ground control to Lionel Hutz

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hadfield’s cover ran into legal trouble almost immediately after its release because copyright doesn’t particularly care how popular or viral a song is. In spite of having explicit permission from David Bowie and his attorneys, Hadfield’s “Space Oddity” was pulled from YouTube after the initial agreement allowing its use online expired, leaving would-be viewers unable to watch it until a new one was inked.

The video’s status has finally been settled under a new agreement, but it might come down again after that agreement expires. The perpetual difficulty arises from the fact that there just aren’t many legal precedents on how copyright works in space.

But it doesn’t matter—not really. Lawyers can wrangle over the legalities of far-flung songwriting all they want, but it won’t change our nature. We remain a species of singing storytellers, regardless of whether we’re on the ground, in orbit, or standing on some far-flung foreign world. We’ll always bring our songs and stories with us, no matter how far away from home we travel—copyright or no.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1285951