YouTube pulls the plug on music videos in the UK

10 March 2009

Google-owned music sharing service, YouTube has pulled the plug on all music videos from the UK after failing to reach a new payment agreement with the Performing Rights Society for Music (PRS), the trade body that collects music royalties on behalf of nearly 50,000 composers.

YouTube said today that PRS had put forward a new payment term after the expiry of its previous contract, which would make it frightfully expensive for the site and would make YouTube pay more than the revenue it makes from the ads next to each video.

YouTube also alleged that PRS refused to identify which artists and songs are covered by the licence, as YouTube required identifying and paying royalties to the rights holders for each song that is viewed.

It said that since copyrights in music is pretty complicated as there may be several different copyrights in a single music video, controlled by different organisations with different interests. The visual elements and the sound recording of a music video are typically owned by a record label, while the music and lyrics of the song being performed are owned separately by one or more music publishers.

Since there were two obstacles in these negotiations, one being prohibitive licensing fees and the other, lack of transparency, YouTube said that it was forced to block premium music videos of EMI, Universal, Warner and Sony BMG in the UK that have been supplied or claimed by record labels.

YouTube is still be working to create more ways to compensate musicians and other rights-holders on its site and in addition to various advertising options. It has recently introduced a click-to-buy feature that enables fans to purchase downloads of their favourite songs.