As you may have heard by now, big news in the music streaming world this week is that YouTube has begun to pull ‘premium music videos’ from its UK site after negotiations over a new deal with the Performing Rights Society (PRS) broke down March 10th.
The word coming from the official Google/YouTube blog on the subject is that talks between the two companies have broken down after talks over a renewed deal ended with the PRS’ being accused of asking for too much money and being too secretive.
YouTube said today that after the expiry of its former deal, PRS had proposed new payment terms that would be financially prohibitive for the site and would require YouTube to pay out more than it makes from the ads next to each video.
“Our previous license from PRS for Music has expired, and we’ve been unable so far to come to an agreement to renew it on terms that are economically sustainable for us. There are two obstacles in these negotiations: prohibitive licensing fees and lack of transparency”.
PRS said today that Google’s announcement was made without any consultation and in the middle of negotiations, and that it is “outraged on behalf of consumers and songwriters that Google has chosen to close down access to music videos on YouTube in the UK”.
But it also appeared to contradict Google’s claim that PRS had asked much more money for the new license, saying the tech giant wants “to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies”.
The takedown of videos will occur over the next few days, with a number already inaccessible to those with UK and international IP addresses.
Negotiations are continuing, and it’s likely to be something YouTube wants sorted out sooner rather than later in order to maintain the relationship it has with the record labels. One thing is clear, whichever organisation prevails, it seems inevitable that musicians are going to lose. If PRS For Music caves in then Google will pay less to musicians; if it doesn’t and the videos remain blocked, then musicians won’t get paid at all.
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