The Ottawa Citizen has issued a full apology to legendary rock star David Bowie, admitting that the writer of an op-ed piece incorrectly blamed him for the removal last month of a YouTube version of Bowie’s "Space Oddity."
The video, seen more than 22 million times, had been made by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and was the first music video recorded in space aboard the International Space Station in May of last year.
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“The commentary erroneously claimed that Mr. Bowie refused to renew a one-year licence previously granted to Commander Hadfield,
ultimately forcing the video to be removed from worldwide distribution,” the Ottawa Citizen's apology stated. “That was incorrect.”
Bowie contacted the newspaper and said he had given Hadfield's video of his 1972 hit full support.
“They were informed that while Mr. Bowie would give his full support to the use of the song by Commander Hadfield, ‘Space Oddity’ was the only one of more than 300 songs he has written and recorded for which he did not own or control the copyright,” the Citizen wrote. “Mr. Bowie offered to have his people call the publisher and convey his strong support, but he had no ability to personally dictate any of the terms of the license or even require the publishers to issue one.”
According to the Citizen, Bowie contacted the publisher of the song, saying he wanted Hadfield to have the right to “record and synchronize his recording to the video he was proposing to make just before his return to Earth after five months on the space station.
“Mr. Bowie strongly suggested that the license be immediately issued at no charge and that the creation of this video had his enthusiastic support,” the Citizen stated.
However, the Citizen said, it “erroneously published that Mr. Bowie had granted the original license but failed to renew the license after one year.”
"The commentary published by the Citizen also erroneously implied that Mr. Bowie was the reason the video had to be removed from YouTube and questioned how his actions could have 'made the world a better place.'"
"On behalf of Blayne Haggart and ourselves, we regret the error and we sincerely apologize to Mr. Bowie as well as all his fans around the world."
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