YouTube Strikes Licensing Deal With Nine Music Publishers

On its blog on Wednesday, YouTube said it had struck content deals with nine music publishing companies that will compensate artists when their copyrighted work is used by YouTube content creators.

YouTube struck the same deal with the National Music Publishers Association and its subsidiary, Harry Fox Agency, last year.

The new deal is with BMR Rights Management, Christian Copyright Solutions, ABKO Music, Inc., Songs Music Publishing, Words & Music, Copyright Administration, Music Services, Reservoir Media Management, and Songs of Virtual. These companies represent such artists as Adele, Foo Fighters, The Rolling Stones, Cee Lo Green and Sam Cooke.

YouTube will use its Content ID system to identify copyrighted songs used in user-generated videos and then compensate the artists accordingly.

Content ID gives copyright holders the option of making money off a video using their work by sharing ad revenue with Google, or pulling it from the site altogether.

ReelSEO’s Chris Atkinson says the new deal is great for music publishers, but not so great for content creators who use copyrighted music inside videos that they are trying to monetize. “Once you start using copyrighted material you are pretty much at the mercy of the copyright holders,” he says. 

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