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Youtube Music

Songs by Adele, Bob Dylan, Green Day, Many More Blocked by YouTube in Legal Dispute (variety.com) 53

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.

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

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30, 2024 @10:25AM (#64828457)
    Buy a CD and rip it or download the music you want and never put up with this bullshit ever again.
  • Shrug (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Monday September 30, 2024 @10:29AM (#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.
  • by AlexSledge ( 10102306 ) on Monday September 30, 2024 @10:49AM (#64828519)

    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.

    • These disruptions in traditional entertainment - movies, radio, music, etc. - seem to be a long march to dismantle one of the USA's most successful exports: Entertainment.

      While each of the musicians / acts may receive a good amount of licensing royalties from Youtube, it's likely so small that Youtube won't miss any advertising revenue.

      Second speculation: We're at the last 5 years of boomers being a big consumption of media and entertainment, they're collectively aged out of many consumption areas and their

  • I'll just root for none of them.
  • Can we please... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Monday September 30, 2024 @11:05AM (#64828555) Homepage
    ...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!

      • by HiThere ( 15173 )

        May the FSM touch you.
        Unfortunately, this won't hurt either of those groups.

      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Yep. 25 years after first publication seems reasonable. Until that happens, it's the pirate life for me! Arrrrr!

        Personally I'd go with 5 years for free, each year after that has an increasing fee to secure a copyright up to a maximum of 15. Lets say year 10 costs twice as much as year 5, and doubles for each year after year 10.

        Artists earn their money via live performances, so it will hardly affect them if someone can download a 20 year old song for free because going to an actual concert is a completely different thing, if anything it's free advertising for the artist as their old material can more easily get new

    • 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.
  • Why I don't trust any streaming service. Unless you own the media it can be taken away from you at any time.

  • Some of Dylan's songs go back over 60 years. Are those albums really hot sellers today?

    I would think that, in most cases, if any money is to made on an album, or movie, or book, about 98% of that money will be made in the first year. After that, sales go down to a trickle - if even that.

    After this legal action, will the record companies really make any more money? Or will people just do without, or download from the torrents instead?

  • As platforms get more and more restrictive, I find people who understand how to download and view content locally are becoming more capable.
    Good riddance, I hope you had the time of your life
  • How else would you listen to their music? Apart from Spotify or buying CDs, which the latter no one can even find anymore.

    There shouldn't be contracts in the first place, they should get a share of the advertising revenue and that's it. Google takes a cut and the video owner takes a cut. Who negotiates that cut? Algorithms.

    If I purchase a song, and want to use it on a video or record myself playing it in the background, I should be able to, I purchased it. If anyone else wants to use it too they shoul

"The medium is the message." -- Marshall McLuhan

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