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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.
GEMA is the only german institution that I can think of that managed to preserve all its initial values from its creation in 1933 to the present day.
That's not what's wrong with GEMA. Its legal status allows it to claim any music for their artists, unless you provide them with a list of the songs you play and prove that you have a license to play them. If there's one song on the list with an unclear status, you pay exactly as much as if you had been playing GEMA artists the whole time. Even if you only play 100% certain CC songs at a public event, GEMA will come after you. Don't have a complete playlist? Pay up. And yes, they do send people to check that you only play what's on your playlist.