YouTube is pulling music videos from its site for visitors from Germany in a royalty row with the country’s music industry. It’s a similar story to a recent dispute in the United Kingdom.

The row is with GEMA, an organization representing 60,000 German artists. In this case it’s acting in its capacity as the collection agency for royalties on performances of songs.

As with the dispute with the UK’s Performing Rights Society, an existing YouTube licensing deal for the country has expired without an extension being negotiated. The dispute appears to cover both financial elements of the deal: the flat fees charged for carrying a song, and the royalties paid each time a clip is viewed.

GEMA says it can’t agree to the flat-fee charge as YouTube isn’t willing to provide enough detail about exactly what songs are carried on the site. (That process could be blurred by fans uploading tracks without authorization.) Without this, GEMA argues it can’t work out the right fee to charge so that the lump sum can be divided fairly among performers.

There’s also a dispute over each side’s position on royalty levels. GEMA says YouTube has rejected its call for a charge of 0.01 Euros for each play of a track. (It’s not clear how this compares to the existing agreement, though GEMA appears to be arguing for rates which reflect the advertising profits YouTube makes on the back of clips.)

YouTube says that not only is this level too high, but that GEMA is actually demanding 0.16 Euros per play in the long-term, a rate YouTube says is completely unsustainable for its business model.

As with the British dispute, YouTube is blocking all songs to German users, regardless of where the artists come from. The blocking method is not confirmed yet and could involve muting tracks, replacing them with an explanatory note or removing them altogether.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 4:53 pm under Legal, Music, YouTube.

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