We already know that Google owned YouTube owes its popularity to the music videos they have. You will be able to find any music video you need in YouTube. Over 50% of its billion views come from the music videos. Out of all these, YouTube generates a considerable amount of money. Warner music, which has been one of the good partners of YouTube, is no more ready to allow its music videos to be played in YouTube. Lot of users are going to miss all popular music videos from YouTube from this Christmas. Holiday season would have been a time when YouTube normally attracts additional users. Removal of the most popular Warner Music from YouTube will certainly affect the traffic to YouTube.
Even the videos that are posted by users that has Warner Music will be removed. YouTube and Warner Music were unable to reach mutually agreeable licensing terms and as an aftermath to this failure, Warner Music Group has instructed that YouTube can no longer display thousands of music videos including the user posted video be removed from YouTube. The removal process has already started from Saturday and it is continuing.
Streaming music videos have been a new goldmine that was used by Google to make money. Their advertising business promised great scope in this area and Google was planning to expand its operations while Warner Music licensing issues came as an unexpected blow to Google.
It has been noted that ten out of six YouTube’s videos are music videos. As per reports, around 8 billion views for YouTube come from music videos. Google’s YouTube announced to its users on Friday that the music videos are to go. However, there is an open ended promise from YouTube that it will work with artists and labels to come up with better licensing policies so that YouTube users can continue to enjoy their music videos in YouTube.
According to Warner Music it, “simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide.” As per the original licensing agreement, music companies like Universal Music, EMI, Sony BMG including Warner Music received a share of the advertising revenue and a fee per stream. So greater the number of views greater the revenue generated by the music company. There are number of confusions with regard to the payment terms and conditions. There were disagreements on the payment schedules and whether the payment is to be received by the companies in advance or after the views take place. This has been one of the major points of argument between Warner Music and YouTube.
While Warner Music has not renewed its agreement that expired long time ago, other music companies are still in discussion with YouTube. Warner Music’s example may set a bad trend for YouTube. Loss of traffic is to be expected after Warner Music videos, which has been one of the major contributors of music videos in YouTube.