YouTube closes deal with National Music Publishers Association

The two leading US representatives of music publishers and songwriters, National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) and its subsidiary Harry Fox Agency made an agreement with YouTube, which ensures publishers and songwriters to get royalties and ad revenues from the ads that will run on each You Tube video. YouTube’s Content ID will be used to detect which compositions are owned by a given artist, even if the version uploaded is a cover by another artist.

The NMPA is an association that represents hundreds of songwriters and music publishers. It was caught up in a legal battle with YouTube for many years, but in 2007 a US District Court filed a summary judgment in favor of YouTube. The appeal is still pending, but now the NMPA and its music publishers decided to dismiss their appeal due to this agreement. The subsidiary company of NMPA, Harry Fox Agency, will administrate the licensing agreement.

YouTube has become a large target of lawsuits from the music industry, as a result of its huge amount of users that check out songs on YouTube. For instance, Viacom, one of the world’s largest media conglomerates, sued YouTube in 2007, but the judge ruled that YouTube - being a service provider - qualified for the Save Harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and has no general monitoring obligations. This means that YouTube is principally not liable for unlawful content (such as copyright infringement) from users, unless they have been informed on the presence thereof and subsequently don’t take rapid action to remove or block access to the referred illegal content through a proper notice and takedown procedure.

Now, under this new settlement the lawsuits might decrease, a great deal of music will not be pulled down from YouTube, and songwriters get the recognition they deserve for their artistic contribution.

Reference: NYTimes