YouTube and YouTube Music appeal to every audience with millions of users worldwide. In this context, it also has licensing agreements with many studios and publishing organizations. However, hundreds of songs on YouTube and YouTube Music have been removed from YouTube and YouTube Music due to a dispute with one of the largest music rights organizations.
License dispute between YouTube and SESAC
YouTube Music and YouTube users have reported that thousands of songs are unavailable on the platforms. The source of the problem is a licensing dispute between YouTube and SESAC, one of the largest music rights organizations in the US.
SESAC represents thousands of songwriters and music publishers and is responsible for licensing musical works. YouTube previously had a license agreement to legally stream all songs in the SESAC repertoire. However, this agreement was not renewed and the two sides could not agree on a new deal.
In this context, YouTube had to block all SESAC-related content from its services in the US. On YouTube Music, users are seeing various warnings with exclamation marks on songs linked to SESAC. When they try to play these songs, they receive a message saying “This video contains content from SESAC. Not available in your country” error message.
On YouTube, the songs are still available, but the same error message appears and the songs cannot be played. This affects popular artists represented by SESAC, such as Adele, Bob Dylan and Jack Harlow.
YouTube said in a statement that it wanted to negotiate, but was unable to reach an agreement with SESAC before the deal expired. The platform said it takes copyright seriously, adding that it will restore the missing songs when a new deal is reached.
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