Youtube to block ALL music videos to the UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7933565.stm

YouTube is blocking all premium music videos to UK users after failing to reach a new licensing agreement with the Performing Right Society (PRS).

Thousands of videos will be unavailable to YouTube users from later on Monday.

Patrick Walker, YouTube's director of video partnerships, told BBC News that the move was "regrettable".

Steve Porter, head of the PRS, said he was "outraged... shocked and disappointed" by YouTube's decision.

In a statement, Mr Porter said the move "punishes British consumers and the songwriters whose interests we protect and represent".

The PRS has asked YouTube to reconsider its decision as a "matter of urgency".
The body, which represents music publishers, added: "Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing.

"This action has been taken without any consultation with PRS for Music and in the middle of negotiations between the two parties."

Mr Walker told BBC News the PRS was seeking a rise in fees "many, many factors" higher than the previous agreement.

He said: "We feel we are so far apart that we have to remove content while we continue to negotiate with the PRS."

"We are making the message public because it will be noticeable to users on the site."
Videos will begin to be blocked from 1800 GMT with the majority of them made inaccessible over the next two days.

YouTube pays a licence to the PRS which covers the streaming of music videos from three of the four major music labels and many independent labels.

Stream online

While deals with individual record labels cover the use of the visual element and sound recording in a music video, firms that want to stream online also have to have a separate deal with music publishers which covers the music and lyrics.

In the UK, the PRS acts as a collecting society on behalf of member publishers for licensing fees relating to use of music.

YouTube stressed that it continued to have "strong partnerships" with three of the four largest record labels in the world.

Mr Walker said the PRS was asking for a "prohibitive" rise in the cost of a new license.

While not specifying the rate the PRS was seeking, he said: "It has to be a rate than can drive a business model. We are in the business for the long run and we want to drive the use of online video.

"The rate they are applying would mean we would lose significant amounts of money on every stream of a music video. It is not a reasonable rate to ask."

New deal

YouTube has also complained of a lack of transparency by the PRS, saying the organisation would not specify exactly which artists would be covered by any new deal.

"That's like asking a consumer to buy a blank CD without knowing what musicians are on it," a statement from YouTube UK says on its official blog.

YouTube is the world's most popular online video site but has been under increased pressure to generate more revenue since its purchase by Google for $1.65 billion in 2006.

"We are not willing to do this [new licensing deal] at any cost," said Mr Walker.

He said the issue was an industry-wide one and not just related to YouTube.

"By setting rates that don't allow new business models to flourish, nobody wins."

Services such as Pandora.com, MySpace UK and Imeem have also had issues securing licence deals in the UK in the last 12 months.

DAMN!!! no no no no no no no!!!

wow that sucks. btw snoball i finally listened to the fake u2 album and you are a hero imo.

thanks!

i'd be surprised if this wasn't PRS just trying to hold Google to ransom/unrealistic valuation of the service/privilege - and they're trying so hard to paint YouTube/Google as the problem but it's supect. embed-disable and regional restrictions were already choking the model.

good luck uk

ty

goin out to all UK peoples, hang on in these ruff times

Yeah, I hope that this is just folks taking a negotiating position. Anyone know who stands to lose more in this situation? I had supposed that YouTube was quite an important promotional tool for lots of bands, but then again I don't really listen to the radio or watch music tv.

seriously though
how will i get through the day without it?

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ckMvj1piK58&hl=en&fs=1";></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ckMvj1piK58&hl=en&fs=1"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

well that worked. twats.

Youtube is massively important for both majors and indies, the PRS seem to be shooting us all in the feet.

lol at PRS lecturing the Google on how the internet changes everything. this is the union you join by filling a form in online and then when you get to the end of it you have to print it out, put it in an envelope with a cheque, and post it to them. disgusting savages imo.

they really are a bunch of complete tards. i have dealt with them as an artist, publisher and licensee of music and every experience has been utterly miserable and infuriating.

also they are outsourcing the department my friend works in to krakow. boooooo.

Email the daily mail about it

Well done, PRS chaps. Keep up the good work.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3045/2971979652_5c6a478205.jpg

Will youtube get sued if any of the videos get uploaded by users?

You 'used' to be able to save the vids via a secret sequence involving accessing yr temporary cache.

Now, (or more accurately,last time I tried), the vid in question would not play without the codec simultaneously being accessed. Or something.

Still, I did manage to save that excellent "Kleenex" "Nice" video before that happened.

Dee dee dee!

i use videos.onsmash.com anyway

I can't really see this situation continuing for very long.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7942045.stm

YouTube has been accused of trying to "bully" British songwriters in a growing row over pay for music videos.

YouTube UK is blocking all premium music clips after failing to agree a new deal with the Performing Right Society (PRS) to pay royalties.

Feargal Sharkey, the former Undertones singer and now head of industry body UK Music, said it was a "blatant, cynical, manipulative" negotiating tactic.

YouTube dismissed the comments and said it wanted to pay artists a fair price.

A deal between YouTube and the PRS, which set out how much the website pays songwriters every time their videos are watched, has expired.

The two sides are now wrangling over a new fee. YouTube says the PRS is demanding "many, many times" the previous rate, but the PRS says YouTube wants to pay "significantly less than at present".

Sharkey accused Google, which owns YouTube, of blocking the videos in order to force the PRS to lower its price.

Sharkey said Google was a "large company thinking they're in a position to bully around a little society that represents 60,000 songwriters".

UK Music is an umbrella body for the British commercial music industry, and counts the PRS among its members.

"Quite frankly I'd hoped that by this point in the week Google would have reflected on the mistake they'd made and were willing to move away from the position they'd taken," Sharkey said.

"But quite clearly they're still in the mood to bully our songwriters, our musicians, and that's not acceptable."

Sharkey also charged Google with attempting to "hold them hostage and demand that they start to underwrite their business model".

"That is totally inappropriate and in fact mildly offensive," he said.

YouTube said talks with the PRS were ongoing. The site started blocking videos last week and would continue working its way though its catalogue, its director of video partnerships Patrick Walker said.

"We are 100% in support of compensating artists, 100% in support of providing users with a sustainable service, and we are very much hoping for a resolution as soon as we possibly can," he said.

He said the fee PRS wanted was "much higher" than the previous deal, and that there was still "a significant gap" between the two sides.

The negotiations "may take a couple of weeks", he added. "But I think there's a sufficient amount of motivation on both parts to come to a solution. Nobody wins when the content is blocked. We need a win-win solution and that is what we're hoping for."

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45564000/jpg/_45564512_fs(plainbackground)2008.jpg
Feargal Sharkey described YouTubes stance as "mildly offensive"

Dear Member

You may have read the news stories this week about Google blocking access to 'premium' video content on YouTube in the UK as a result of their not agreeing a new licence with PRS for Music. Premium content appears to refer to music videos that are traditionally uploaded by record companies.

You may also have read that Google took this decision unilaterally, without any request from us to do so. Their licence with us had expired at the end of December 2008 and we were negotiating their new one. We do not usually ask anyone to remove content as long as good faith negotiations are taking place.

Immediately we heard news of Google's decision to pull content from YouTube, and that they were talking to the press about it, we issued our own press statement. We expressed our outrage, shock and disappointment on behalf of UK consumers and on behalf of you, our members that Google should take this action.

Google's decision must be seen as an attempt to influence commercial negotiation and the focus on 'premium' content as an attempt to cause disruption within the music industry again. This content may account for about 1% of YouTube music streams.

At the heart of Google's precipitous action is the going rate for music. This is the rate set by the UK Copyright Tribunal in 2007. The Tribunal is the ultimate and independent arbiter of copyright dispute. Digital service providers pay a fraction of a penny per stream to the creator of the music.

Most of the major digital service providers are licensed by PRS for Music. And just recently we have signed deals with Amazon, Beatport, Nokia Comes With Music and Qtrax.

YouTube has signed-up to licences in very few countries around the world - we were one of the few. They have never before taken down content unless they have been forced to do so by copyright holders. Meanwhile, in the UK, consumer streams of YouTube 'premium' content have risen by almost 300% in the last year alone (up from 75m streams a quarter to nearly 300m streams a quarter). In total, Google want to pay 50% less than they paid before for that usage. Google think they paid too much last time. But their music usage, charged at the going rate, suggests they were significantly underpaying.

A further delay to our negotiation has been that Google is, at present, not giving us the data we need to calculate correct royalty payments to you. We ask them to make returns on their music use in the same way that every other major licensee does in order that we can properly analyse it, charge the right fee and then pay the copyright owners we represent. If there's a stream of a track we don't control, Google won't pay us for that stream. Google would like to see our database in order to match it against theirs so they can calculate how much they owe us.

We look forward to continuing our negotiations with Google where we will be looking for them to pay an appropriate amount for the volume of music they use and the contribution that songwriters make to the success of their service.

In the meantime, please help us to help you. There are numerous Internet blogs hosting discussions on songwriter royalties. All too often, the voice of the composer and songwriter is lost in the midst of issues relating to the freedom of the Internet. Many blog posters misunderstand how royalties work and how you get paid. We should not forget that more than 90% of PRS for Music members receive less than £5,000 per year in royalties.

Wherever possible, please contribute fully to this online debate, putting the composer and songwriter point of view. Additionally, if you feel you could give your time, where needed, to talk or write to the media in support of PRS for Music and of the composer/songwriter community, please email us.

With best wishes

Steve Porter, Chief Executive, PRS for Music

Hold on, isn't it just "premium" videos, whatever those might be? The Fall seemed to be working fine earlier today!

sfaict it's ones put up by the record companies.

right. if "ALL" = 1% then the title of this thread is correct.

they talk about "Google using the music" but those are odd terms - Google provides the platform for content owners to provide the content. It's the record companies that are 'using' in this sense. I'll never really get this whole 'pay artists in exchange for freely advertising their work' thing tho.

We're running an online PRS for Music member poll that is now live on our website.

We are asking four questions that require four straight answers - yes, or no. It will take you less than a minute to complete. Simply follow the link below, log-in to the site as usual and answer our questions. We'll use the results in our future media campaigning.

1. Do you earn enough from the use of your music online?
2. I would be happy not to earn royalties from online sites like YouTube, because they promote my music so that I earn more from other uses eg live performance, paid downloads/CDs. Do you agree with this statement?
3. Would you be upset if your work was not showcased on YouTube?
4. Is it fair that the creative community should subsidise online music services until they can find a way to be profitable?

that last one is amusing

i loathe PRS with the fire of a thousand suns. i wish thatcher came back and smashed them.

Rather than having Google pay PRS, if YouTube introduced a credits system where individual users paid YouTube to watch 'premium content' (inc authorised music videos) for example 'pay $0.10 to watch more than 30 seconds' maybe they could get artists paid that way. And you'd pay once to then watch the clip as often as you wanted.

Premium content can get millions of views so even if users paid such tiny amounts you're talking potentially decent returns. Obviously encouraging users to buy credits to watch what used to be free is tough but if people are serious about rewarding artists then why not plus make the price low enough and enough people may think 'what the hell it's only 10 cents'.

from saturday, pete waterman complaining that he hasn't received enough money from rickrolls:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/music/article2319523.ece

Google and PRS hate-fuck resolution