Music publishers join the queue to sue YouTube
By John Pospisil
While Google’s YouTube video sharing site has reach agreements with the four major record labels, it appears that music publishers now also want a cut of the action.
As you may know music labels own the rights to recordings of songs, while music publishers own the rights to the lyrics and melodies. Companies that want to use a piece of music must obtain permission from both the music label and the publisher.
The US-based National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), which represents music publishers, has joined an existing lawsuit filed by the UK-based Football Association Premier League and the New York-based music publisher Bourne Co in the New York City District Count in May. The plaintiffs are seeking class action status for their lawsuit.
Interestingly, Robert Tur, a Los Angeles news operator, who sued YouTube in July last year for allowing its users to “share” his famous video of trucker Reginald Denny being beaten up by a mob in the 1992 Los Angeles riot, is also said to be planning to join this lawsuit.
While Google has made an agreement with the largest music publisher, the Universal Music Publishing Group, negotiations with the NMPA have been slow, and now appear to have stalled.
Google maintains that YouTube is actually beneficial to music publishers.
“Many song writers and music publishers view YouTube as a promising promotional platform for connecting with their fans, We are surprised and disappointed that the NMPA has elected to take this route,” Google said in a statement.
Google said it removes video clips from YouTube when requested by copyright owners.
“[US copyright law] places the responsibility for identifying alleged infringements with those who can actually identify it, the owners,” Google said pointedly.
Google is in the process of testing video fingerprinting technology that will allow it to automatically remove copyrighted material.
I know I say this every time I write a story about Google getting sued, but is there anyone who isn’t suing Google?
Related:
Entry was posted
on Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
under 
Print This Post
Read more entries by John Pospisil.
Stumble It!
