WMG Re-Ups With YouTube
Warner Music Group has extended its recorded-music and publishing deals with YouTube. That’s the word from Variety, citing a company memo from CEO Steve Cooper, which reads, in part, “I wanted to let you all know that, following months of tough negotiations, we’ve extended our deals with YouTube, separately for music publishing and recorded music. On the publishing side, Warner/Chappell tirelessly championed songwriters’ rights, and equally, our recorded music team was relentless on behalf of our artists and our music. We secured the best possible deals under very difficult circumstances. Our new deals are also shorter than usual, giving us more options in the future.”
Cooper’s memo continued, “Nevertheless, our fight to further improve compensation and control for our songwriters and artists continues to be hindered by the leverage that ‘safe harbor’ laws provide YouTube and other user-uploaded services. There’s no getting around the fact that, even if YouTube doesn’t have licenses, our music will still be available but not monetized at all. Under those circumstances, there can be no free-market ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ negotiation.”
Record companies have long railed against safe harbor laws and YouTube’s comparatively low royalty payments. Variety cites a report released last month from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which singles out YouTube and other user-upload video streaming services as a major deterrent to the music industry’s recent growth. Based on the IFPI’s “conservative estimate,” some 900 million people use such services and pay around $553 million to rights holders in revenue. By contrast, the much smaller base of 212 million users of licensed audio subscription services (both paid and ad-supported) such as Spotify and Apple Music paid more than $3.9 billion.
In September 2006, Warner became the first major music company to sign a licensing deal with YouTube. Warner’s chief executive at the time, Lyor Cohen, was named YouTube’s Global Head of Music in September 2016.
