In the United States, several official videos of artists’ popular songs have been restricted since September 28.
Since last Saturday, September 28, American YouTube users have complained about the sudden restriction on several classics by artists such as Adele, Kendrick Lamar, Bob Dylan, Nirvana, among others.
For a few days now, those who want to listen to and see the official videos of iconic songs like Rolling in the deep by Adele, the Like a rolling stone of Bob Dylan, they get an ad that says “This video contains SESAC content. It is not available in your country.” The restriction appears in several of the songs by the aforementioned artists, but not all.
What is SESAC?
SESAC, which stands for Society of European Performing Authors and Composers, is a performing rights organization, similar to BMI and ASCAP. It was founded in 1930, but in 2017 it was acquired by the private equity firm Blackstone. According to its website, it “currently licenses the public performance of more than 1.5 million songs on behalf of its more than 15,000 affiliated songwriters, authors and music publishers.” It is considered one of the oldest performing rights organizations in the United States and has 30,000 songwriters and more than one million compositions in its catalog.
We recommend you read: The new iPhone anti-theft feature: this is how you can activate it
At the moment, SESAC has not commented on the blocks on YouTube. However, in a statement to Variety, a representative for the video platform said: “We have been in good faith negotiations with SESAC to renew our existing agreement. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before its expiration.” Certain songs performed by Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj and other artists are also affected, possibly because they include SESAC-affiliated songwriters.
Likewise, he insisted that despite not having reached an agreement to date, they are still in dialogue to solve this problem, “We take copyright very seriously and, as a result, the content represented by SESAC is no longer available.” available on YouTube in the United States. “We are in active discussions and hope to reach a new agreement as soon as possible.”
TikTok and Universal Music Group went through a similar situation at the end of February of this year, in which due to economic, artificial intelligence and security issues for artists, as UMG stated in an open letter, it removed its catalog of songs from the popular short video platform.
According to information from Variety, the agreement in question expires in the next few days, for that reason, the insider suggests that YouTube’s move is pressure to favor its position in the negotiations. Although there are other larger performing rights groups such as ASCAP and BMI, SESAC achieves valuable placement evidenced by the level of popularity of artists affected by the block.
Performing rights organizations, such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC in the US, collect royalties and help protect copyrights on behalf of songwriters and music publishers. They have the ability to block certain public performances of music, which means everything from streaming to radio to music played in restaurants.
You might be interested in: Epic Games sues Samsung and Google for stopping the use of app stores
The YouTube support account responded to posts on but we still do not have exact dates for future updates.”
These types of blockages, although common, are usually temporary, and are usually resolved in a matter of days or weeks. The reason is that, for both parties, keeping content accessible benefits both the rights holders, who receive royalties, and the platform, which retains its users. However, there are exceptions to this rule, as evidenced by the case between YouTube and Warner Music Group in 2008-2009, where a dispute over licensing terms led to Warner removing its content from YouTube for an extended period of nine months.
👽👽👽 Are you already aware of the latest news from technology? We invite you to visit our section at The Spectator.
