Publishing rights organisation Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (“SESAC”) hit the pause button on their agreement with YouTube, which had resulted in the access to music videos for the likes of Adele, Nirvana and Kendrick Lamar being blocked to users in North America. The parties failed to reach an agreement as to the renewal of YouTube’s existing contract with SESAC which was nearing its expiration date, and consequently YouTube removed the content on their platform with only unofficial uploads remaining.
SESAC has more than 30 thousand affiliated songwriters, composers and music publishers, and licenses the copyright to the music videos and public performance on their behalf. More than a million songs were subject to “Video unavailable. This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country” error display message that appeared to US users when they tried to access any content which is subject to the licence.
YouTube released a statement and said “We have held good faith negotiations with SESAC to renew our existing deal. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before its expiration. We are in active conversations with SESAC and are hoping to reach a new deal as soon as possible.” It is suspected that YouTube used the removal of the content as a negotiation tactic to pressure SESAC into comprising their position as to a new agreement. This may have worked in their favour as it has been reported that the parties have now resolved the dispute and reached an agreement that is equitable to SESAC members for the use of their music. As a result of the settlement, it is expected that YouTube will now restore the content that was previously blocked on their site.
It is refreshing that the parties were able to resolve the matter fairly quickly in comparison to the negotiations surrounding Universal’s removal of music from Tik Tok, that were dragged out and allegedly tense.
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