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Yesterday, a number of music videos were rendered unplayable in the US by YouTube. Why? The arrangement with SESAC has expired and both sides say they cannot reach an agreement. (One side says "equitable agreement".
What is SESAC? It is a corporation that collects royalties for songs. If you write a song, and someone records it, and then the record is played on a radio station in Grand Forks, North Dakota, that station owes you a royalty - maybe a dime. It costs far more than a dime for you to bill them, and far more than a dime for them to pay you, and that's where ASCAP, BMI and SESAC come in.
These companies collect all the royalties for all their artists, so our radio station only needs to write 3 checks. They divvy up the royalties and mail the checks to the artists and songwriters.
Google is bigger than our Grand Forks station, so they feel they can leverage that to get a big discount. SESAC, in this case, would like to see a smaller discount. And that's where the dispute comes in.
In the process of looking things up, I found out that Google is in some cases twelve years behind in royalty payments. I am sure this has some impact on the negotiations.
What is SESAC? It is a corporation that collects royalties for songs. If you write a song, and someone records it, and then the record is played on a radio station in Grand Forks, North Dakota, that station owes you a royalty - maybe a dime. It costs far more than a dime for you to bill them, and far more than a dime for them to pay you, and that's where ASCAP, BMI and SESAC come in.
These companies collect all the royalties for all their artists, so our radio station only needs to write 3 checks. They divvy up the royalties and mail the checks to the artists and songwriters.
Google is bigger than our Grand Forks station, so they feel they can leverage that to get a big discount. SESAC, in this case, would like to see a smaller discount. And that's where the dispute comes in.
In the process of looking things up, I found out that Google is in some cases twelve years behind in royalty payments. I am sure this has some impact on the negotiations.
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