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Youtube Music

Songs by Adele, Bob Dylan, Green Day, Many More Blocked by YouTube in Legal Dispute (variety.com) 28

An anonymous reader shares a report: Songs by Adele, Bob Dylan, Green Day, R.E.M., Burna Boy, Rush and many others are currently unplayable on YouTube in the U.S. due to a legal dispute between the platform and the performing rights organization SESAC. Attempts to play many, but not all, songs by those artists on Saturday met with the following message: "This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country."

A similar dispute between Universal Music Group and TikTok raged on for several months earlier this year before being resolved. In a statement to Variety, a YouTube rep said: "We have held good faith negotiations with SESAC to renew our existing deal. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before its expiration. We take copyright very seriously and as a result, content represented by SESAC is no longer available on YouTube in the US. We are in active conversations with SESAC and are hoping to reach a new deal as soon as possible." A source close to the situation tells Variety that the previous deal actually does not expire until next week, and suggests that YouTube's move is a negotiating tactic. SESAC is far smaller than ASCAP and BMI -- with approximately 30,000 members and 1.5 million compositions while ASCAP has nearly 800,000 members -- but as the caliber of artists affected by the block shows, it represents a comparatively large percentage of the marketplace.

Songs by Adele, Bob Dylan, Green Day, Many More Blocked by YouTube in Legal Dispute

Comments Filter:
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Buy a CD and rip it or download the music you want and never put up with this bullshit ever again.
  • by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Monday September 30, 2024 @11:29AM (#64828469)

    I mean, it's nice being able to watch Rush and Dylan videos on Youtube. However, Youtube doesn't have a right to SESAC's content, and SESAC doesn't have a right for their content to be on Youtube. I don't particularly care one way or the other.

    It's the same with news blurbs and Google. If news sites don't want their content to be on Google, Google is happy to remove it. Typing www.latimes.com isn't more difficult than typing www.google.com/news.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The artists may have something to say about it. Many of them prefer their work to be freely available, because they make most of their money from touring and merchandise.

    • This includes YouTube music, the paid music streaming service with royalties.
  • nothing of any value will be lost.
  • I've bought music on every format which has existed except reel to reel, and you know what. I couldn't give a donkey's fart whether or not any of it was properly licensed, or if rights holders are recognized in any way. After the performing artists are compensated, the rest can piss off.

    I hope every individual on both sides of that "conflict" gets ass cancer and dies in their own shit for making me aware that profiteers are having a lovers spat.

  • I'll just root for none of them.
  • ...set copyright back to some reasonable term? Most of these songs should no linger be projected.
    • Yep. 25 years after first publication seems reasonable. Until that happens, it's the pirate life for me! Arrrrr!

    • 7+7 was considered fair by the pepple who created the power.

      You can't just say that they would have been OK with 400 years, which the corrupt would love.

      Then again they said we should violently overthrow anybody who tried such shenanigans, so there's that.

  • .... this is a battle between SESAC, ASCAP and BMI. A message tohigh value perfotmers to dump the third place organisation and come on over to the big boys. Or you'll never be heard again.

    I will get my popcorn and watch the battle. As I listen to all the open source music being played by the London Philharmomic Orchestra.

  • Expect a slight uptick in music piracy, and maybe some more people realizing that they don't want others in control of their music library.
  • I wonder if this is going to get other videos demonetized or muted because they happened to have these songs playing in the background. I'm seeing more and more video creators of all stripes getting worried about songs unintentionally ending up on their videos, even if it's just something barely audible playing from far away, for this very reason.

Save the whales. Collect the whole set.

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