Published
Tue, Nov 1, 2016, 10:45
- An agreement has finally been reached after a seven-year stand-off.
Music from the GEMA repertoire is now legally accessible to German viewers on YouTube.
The German royalty collection association has been blocking music under its jurisdiction on YouTube for seven years, dramatically reducing the pool of music accessible to YouTube users in Germany. According to a statement on the GEMA website, 70,000 rights-holders will now receive renumeration for works published on the video-hosting platform, which will also be available for public viewing. Before April 2009, the Google-owned company had paid GEMA a set per-stream fee. The dispute began during negotiations for a new contract, with GEMA attempting to raise the fee to €1 cent per stream.
Back in January, GEMA unsuccessfully sued YouTube for €1.6 million in damages. Despite the agreement, GEMA still believes that YouTube should be legally responsible for the content uploaded by its users, something that YouTube and German courts have disagreed with.
For more on the history of GEMA's dispute with YouTube, read Luis Manuel Garcia's 2013 feature.