Music content company Warner Music Group Inc. (WMG) has removed videos and songs from the YouTube online video-sharing site owned by Google Inc. (GOOG) after talks over payment with YouTube broke down last week, according to reports Saturday.
Warner's move is expected to affect its recordings as well as the songs it owns through Warner/Chappell Music. The news comes even as other major labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and EMI, are renegotiating their licensing deals with YouTube.
The new development means that YouTube users will not be able to view music videos by Warner artists, including Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin and Linkin Park. In addition, any video that features music by a Warner artist, or is written by a songwriter published by Warner/Chappell Music Publishing, will not be available.
YouTube had reportedly alerted its audience of the collapse in talks on its company blog. Warner licensed its recording and music-publishing catalogs to YouTube before the video site's acquisition by Google in 2006. Under the agreement, New York based-Warner received revenue from advertisements and other royalty payments from video streaming.
In early December, Warner said that it signed a new agreement with EMI Music to mutually extend their existing marketing and distribution partnership in India and the Middle East and to enter into their first partnership in Turkey. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Under the multi-year license agreement, EMI Music would continue to serve as the local physical distributor of Warner's repertoire in India as well as the Middle East and would also become Warner's local digital distributor. In Turkey, EMI will become Warner's new local physical and digital distributor, terminating Warner's previous local distributor. Warner will continue to develop and operate global digital partnerships, which will include these territories.
WMG closed Friday's regular trading session at $3.06, down $0.02 or 0.65% on a volume of 0.27 million shares.
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