Commander Hadfield covers "Space Oddity"...from space

m_dejean

So, those of you who have been following astronaut Chris Hadfield on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield) already know that this dude is all sorts of awesome. Yesterday, his turn as Commander of the ISS ended and he's going back to earth today. Prompted by a Reddit request, he recorded a Bowie cover version to say goodbye:



Got a little emotional watching this. Silly, I know, but I'm a sucker for all things space, and Hadfield's updates have been part of my daily routine while he was up there.

"Lock your Soyuz hatch and put your helmet on"

DOR

We're both from the same home town!

Very proud of this him. He's really done an amazing job making kids and adults interested in space again. This was just an amazing top off to an already great trip.

Bowie signed off, which I thought was great! https://twitter.com/DavidBowieReal

Like this off Bowie's FB page.

"It???s possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created and you may recognise the name of one of those involved in its creation.

We???re talking about Chris's fellow Canadian, the lovely Emm Gryner, who was a part of the Bowie live band in 1999/2000. Here???s what she said on her blog (http://smarturl.it/EmmBlog) regarding her involvement:

???The task was in front of me. I came up with a piano part. i then enlisted my friend, producer and fellow Canadian Joe Corcoran to take my piano idea and Chris' vocal and blow it up into a fully produced song. Drums! mellotrons! fuzz bass! We also incorporated into the track ambient space station noises which Chris had put on his Soundcloud. I was mostly blown away by how pure and earnest Chris' singing is on this track. Like weightlessness and his voice agreed to agree.
And voila! And astronaut sings Space Oddity in space! I was so honoured to be asked to be a part of this. You wouldn't get too many chances to make a recording like this and not only that, to make music with someone who - through his vibrant communications with kids in schools to his breathtaking photos to his always patient and good-humoured demeanour - has done more for science and space than anyone else this generation. Planet earth IS blue, and there's nothing left for Chris Hadfield to do. Right. Safe travels home Commander!"

SoundOutLoud

Next level. So many goosebumps...

Grandfather

Pretty amazing stuff.

BeatChemist

FUCK. So good.

The guitar twirling move!

Everything about this is amazing.

kitchenknight

This was incredibly profound.

SoundOutLoud

Copyright Police Update: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/05/economist-explains-12?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/how_does_copyright_work_in_space_

CHRIS HADFIELD has captured the world's heart, judging by the 14m YouTube views of his free-fall rendition of David Bowie's "Space Oddity", recorded on the International Space Station (ISS). The Canadian astronaut's clear voice and capable guitar-playing were complemented by his facility in moving around in the microgravity of low-earth orbit. But when the man fell to Earth in a neat and safe descent a few days ago, after a five-month stay in orbit, should he have been greeted by copyright police? Commander Hadfield was only 250 miles (400 km) up, so he was still subject to terrestrial intellectual-property regimes, which would have applied even if he had flown the "100,000 miles" mentioned in the song's lyrics, or millions of kilometres to Mars. His five-minute video had the potential to create a tangled web of intellectual-property issues. How does copyright work in space?

The song "Space Oddity" is under copyright protection in most countries, and the rights to it belong to Mr Bowie. But compulsory-licensing rights in many nations mean that any composition that has been released to the public (free or commercially) as an audio recording may be recorded again and sold by others for a statutorily defined fee, although it must be substantively the same music and lyrics as the original. But with the ISS circling the globe, which jurisdiction was Commander Hadfield in when he recorded the song and video? Moreover, compulsory-licensing rights for covers of existing songs do not include permission for broadcast or video distribution. Commander Hadfield's song was loaded onto YouTube, which delivers video on demand to users in many countries around the world. The first time the video was streamed in each country constituted publication in that country, and with it the potential for copyright infringement under local laws. Commander Hadfield could have made matters even more complicated by broadcasting live as he sang to an assembled audience of fellow astronauts for an onboard public performance while floating from segment to segment of the ISS.

That is because the space station consists of multiple modules and other pieces (called "elements") under the registration of the United States, the European Space Agency (ESA) consortium, Russia and Japan. The agreement governing the ISS makes it clear (in Article 5) that the applicable laws, including those governing IP rights, depend on which part of it an astronaut is in. This is most relevant when astronauts conduct science or write accounts of their work, whether for public or private parties, although equally true during their off hours. The audio and video seem to have been recorded entirely in the Destiny module, owned by America's space agency, NASA, and the Cupola, which previously owned by the ESA (and would thus have been governed by European law) but was transferred to NASA in 2005. The video was transmitted to Canada (probably through ground stations around the globe), where Mr Bowie's former bandmate Emm Gryner added a piano accompaniment and others edited and produced the final product. But recording a private performance does not violate any laws; a violation only occurs if the material is publicly distributed. Had the song been broadcast from space, Mr Bowie's lawyers would have been entitled to seek redress in Canadian and American courts, in addition to any objections they might have raised based on YouTube views elsewhere. If Commander Hadfield's employer, the Canadian Space Agency, had been deemed to authorise the recording, transmission and distribution of the song while he was on the clock, Commander Hadfield might be off the hook for damages. But he would also, under Canadian copyright and employment rules, retain ownership in the work unless he had specifically assigned it to the CSA.

In this particular case the matter is straightforward because Commander Hadfield had obtained permission to record and distribute the song, and production and distribution was entirely terrestrial. Commander Hadfield and his son Evan spent several months hammering out details with Mr Bowie's representatives, and with NASA, Russia's space agency ROSCOSMOS and the CSA. The copyright issue may seem trivial, but the emergence of privately funded rocket launches, space tourism and space exploration hold the potential for more substantive disputes. If an astronaut were to travel to the Moon, an asteroid or Mars on a privately funded spacecraft, the situation would become knottier still, because the United Nations Outer Space Treaty of 1967 applies to countries, not companies or private individuals. J.A.L. Sterling, a London-based expert on international copyright law, anticipated all this in a 2008 paper, "Space Copyright Law: the new dimension", in which he lists dozens more potentially problematic scenarios that could arise, some seemingly risible at first. He asks what would have happened if, on a moon landing broadcast live by NASA across the world, two astronauts were overcome by emotion and burst into song???one covered by copyright. NASA might still be engaged in litigation 40 years later. More prosaically and immediately plausibly, Sterling considers space travellers who put copyrighted material from Earth on a server reachable from space, or engage in rights-violating "public performances" for crewmates. If the first person to walk on Mars decides to launch into "A Whole New World", the rights will need to have been cleared with Disney first.

DOR

GTFOHWTBS