Commander Chris Hadfield’s cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity is back on YouTube following months of contract negotiations.
The Canadian astronaut recorded the classic track last year on the International Space Station as he prepared to return to Earth after five months in orbit.
It launched on YouTube under a one-year agreement with Bowie’s publisher and racked up close to 24 million views. It was removed in May this year after the deal expired.
Now, following months of talks, a new two-year agreement is in place enabling the track and video to be re-released. And Hadfield doesn’t blame anyone for the situation.
He says on his blog: “David Bowie and his publisher had been very gracious – they had allowed his work, his intellectual property, to be made freely available to everyone for a year and had worked with us and the Canadian Space Agency to make it happen.
“There was no rancour and we removed it from YouTube to honour the agreement. This sequence wasn’t anyone’s fault. The day we took the video down, we started to work again to get permission to get it re-posted. But the legal process is careful and exacting and takes time.”
He continues: “Despite countless online expressions of frustration and desire, it wasn’t anyone’s ill-will or jealousy that kept this version of Space Oddity off YouTube – it was merely the natural consequence of due process.
“We’re proud to have helped bring Bowie’s genius from 1969 into space itself in 2013.”
Bowie previously called the recording “possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created.”
He released the track Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) in October which appears on his upcoming three-CD retrospective Nothing Has Changed. It’s set for release on November 17.