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Legal
US indie publishers reach royalty deal with YouTube
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 19 August 2011
The independent music publishers in the US have reached an agreement with Google over royalty payments for songs played on YouTube.
With so many stakeholders, it can easy to lose track of which rights holders YouTube has deals in place with, and which it does not. In the UK, publishing royalties from YouTube are, in the main, handled by the collecting society PRS For Music. However in the US the four majors have direct deals with YouTube for their publishing rights as well as their sound recording rights.
The indies, meanwhile, have had no deal in place, and have been in the process of suing the web giant via the National Music Publishers Association since 2007. But a deal has now been done, the terms of which are confidential, but which means indie publishers will start to receive royalty payments – most likely a share of advertising – whenever their songs are used in YouTube videos, whether that be in previously released sound recordings or unofficial unreleased cover versions.
As the deal was negotiated by the US publishing sector’s trade body, each individual publisher is at liberty to opt out of the deal and continue to pursue legal action. It remains to be seen if any do, though interestingly BMG – one of the biggest indie publishers – has yet to endorse the NMPA negotiated deal.
