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YouTube's Seven-Year Stand-off Ends (bbc.com)
YouTube has resolved a long-running dispute that prevented many of its clips being accessible in Germany. The Google-owned video service had been at odds with Gema - a German rights body representing musicians, composers and publishers - since 2009. From a report on BBC:The disagreement had affected clips in which the artists appeared as well as those that used their songs in the background. Payments will now be made, but neither side has disclosed the terms. Google's Content ID system means that clips flagged as containing Gema-protected tracks can now have adverts automatically added to them to recompense the songs' creators. And red banners that had prevented thousands of YouTube's clips from playing in Germany have now been removed as a consequence. "This is a win for music artists around the world, enabling them to reach new and existing fans in Germany... and for YouTube users in Germany, who will no longer see a blocking message on music content," blogged YouTube's head of international music partnerships, Christophe Muller.
Sure but GEMA has a few things to make it even worse :
- If you play music from independent musicians, you have to prove that not a single one of them is affiliated to GEMA. If you fail to do it for even a single title, you pay full price. Guilty unless proven innocent.
- Artists affiliated to GEMA have to pay GEMA fees for playing their own music. They may get a refund in some conditions.
- GEMA is governed by its full members, and only the most financially successful artists can become full members, the others have no say. Unsurprisingly, full members also get the lion share of the benefits.