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YouTube cuts music video deal

After a six-month dispute, YouTube and the PRS have agreed a new licensing deal, allowing the reinstatement of music videos to the website.

Thousands of videos were axed from YouTube in March after the internet giants failed to agree on royalties payments with the Performing Rights Society for Music, the trade body that collects royalties for artists. The website claimed that the PRS were proposing extortionate new payment terms while the PRS accused YouTube of striving for a bargain. The new fee agreement remains undisclosed but there is speculation among music industry analysts that the terms are more favourable for YouTube.

Both sides celebrated the deal, which will last until 2012. Andrew Shaw, the managing director of broadcast and online at PRS, said the organisation was delighted.  “We hope it the first of many deals with other services so that music can get out there in whatever way people want to listen to it, while making sure our artists get paid.”

Patrick Walker, YouTube’s director of video partnerships, said: “This deal provides a positive example that people can come together with the objective of satisfying user demands.”

A full catalogue of free music videos is expected to return to the site by this week. Meanwhile, rows over royalties continue elsewhere as business secretary Peter Mandelson plans to cut the broadband connection of illegal file sharers.

The BPI, the body representing record labels, claims that file sharers cost the music industry an estimated £200m a year. They have called Mandelson’s plans ‘a step forward’.

There is widespread criticism of the secretary’s plans, however, with a coalition of music industry bodies emerging to oppose the new steps. A statement released by the coalition said that it is not a policy that any future-minded UK government should pursue and that it has ‘little support from logic’.