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Universal Music Group signs deal to pay indie publishers for YouTube, Vevo content

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After years of major record labels keeping the revenue from their ad-supported content on YouTube and VEVO, HollywoodReporter reported today that the National Music Publishers’ Association announced a deal with Universal Music Group (one of the owners of VEVO), which will see the label pay indie music publishers for the content:

The NMPA termed the agreement, which covers North America, a groundbreaking model licensing deal because it will allow songwriters and music publishers to share in revenue from music videos. Up until now, while Youtube and VEVO were making money on their ad-supported services, indie music publishers had not shared in that revenue because the major labels long considered videos as promotional tools and never paid for licensing the songs used in the videos. But as it became a growing revenue stream, indie publishers began to grumble that the major labels paid the major publishing companies but none of the independent music publishers.

The specifics of the deal have not been made public, but the report claimed that sources said publishers would get 15 percent of advertising revenues related to their content. It also claimed the deal would be “retroactive back to 2008” with the amount for 2008 and 2009 set at 10 percent. The deal is said to cover not just music videos, but also “concert footage, backstage videos and artist interviews.”


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YouTube lands agreements with more publishers to assist in Content ID

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Using their Content ID feature, YouTube can match song covers to a publisher to enable them to make money from a video they didn’t publish. Today to help Content ID along, YouTube announced they landed agreements with National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) and its subsidiary Harry Fox Agency (HFA). Today’s agreement will give YouTube another 46,000 more songs to match ads to. YouTube currently also has agreements with many more publishers.

Going forward, the 46,000 music publishers already affiliated with HFA will be able to license the musical compositions they represent for use by the YouTube community. When these publishers allow YouTube to run ads alongside user generated videos that incorporate their compositions, the publishers, and the songwriters they represent, can make money.

Some users don’t agree with Google/YouTube’s decision to place ads on content that they made — such as a cover of a song. The user isn’t actually using the artist’s song, per-say, but using their own voice..and they don’t get to make a cent from it.
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