It's no secret that there's been much controversy about the issue of copyright on YouTube. After failing to reach a deal with the main congwriters' collection society, PRS (Performing Rights Society), it was decided to block all premium music videos in the UK. Let's safely assume that means us as well, as large international websites don't tend to note any distinction.
This move follows December's removal of all Warner music from the site after the distributor demanded better royalties and more competitive advertising rates, and the situation here is little different. A You Tube company blog stated: "The costs are simply prohibitive for us - under PRS's proposed terms we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback," while head of PRS Steve Porter said the move harmed both music fans and artists. Seems like there's a little to much hard bargaining going on here…
Our own local music television website MUZU.TV have responded to the news by stressing that it is possible to pay PRS current rates and still turn a profit, but YouTube is unable to command premium advertising rates since it is driven by illegal user generated content. MUZU.TV has proudly announced that they pay all artists featured on the site, signed and unsigned, and are still able to give users access to tens of thousands of premium music videos, all for free. YouTube will be removing most of their premium music videos within the next two days, so maybe now is the time to make the switch…
