YouTube Starts Blocking Music Videos In The UK

Published by djmick on March 10th, 2009

youtube blocks UK viewers

Music fans will no longer be able to watch thousands of videos on YouTube after it’s owners Google decided to block ‘premium music videos’ during a dispute over licensing.

Google said it will take several days until all professional music videos are covered by the restriction.

The internet giant described it as a ‘painful decision’ which it knew would cause ‘significant disappointment’ – so why do it then?

PRS for Music licenses Google to make music videos available to UK users on YouTube but the firms are currently negotiating a new licensing deal.

PRS for Music said it was shocked by Google’s ‘drastic action’ which it said would ‘punish’ music lovers and songwriters.

The collection society which issues licences and collects royalties on behalf of copyright holders, said Google wants to pay ‘significantly less than at present to the writers of the music’ while Google said the deal it had been offered would result in it losing money every time a video was played.

A statement from Google said: ‘Our previous licence from PRS for Music has expired, and we’ve been unable so far to come to an agreement to renew it on terms that are economically sustainable for us.’

Of course there are several workarounds to this such as using proxies etc but sadly that doesn’t help me here on djmick as I will no longer be able to embed videos.

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