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YouTube and SESAC are entangled in a legal dispute over song licensing, with end users suffering the brunt of the blows. Millions of streamers attempting to play content containing tracks from the likes of Adele, Burna Boy, Britney Spears, and Kendrick Lamar on Saturday faced disappointment as their search only returned a black screen with the error message, “Video contains content from SESAC.” This left them turning to various platforms seeking the meaning of SESAC and the genesis of their YouTube dispute.
Songs like Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, Bob Dylan’s I Want You, and Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken Dream were among millions of songs affected by the Youtube-SESAC dispute. Although not all the tracks by these celebrities have been pulled down on YouTube, attempting to stream the affected ones, or other content featuring them in the United States return the feedback, “Video Unavailable,” and a subhead, “This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country.”
This disappointing turn of events originates from a legal dispute between the two giants over copyright agreements and the renewal of preexisting contracts. A YouTube representative explained this unfortunate circumstance in a statement to Variety, citing failed negotiations with SESAC to renew their existing deal. The statement continued,
“Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before its expiration. We take copyright very seriously and as a result, content represented by SESAC is no longer available on YouTube in the US. We are in active conversations with SESAC and are hoping to reach a new deal as soon as possible.”
What Is the Meaning of SESAC?
One of the most asked questions since the YouTube crackdown has been, What is the meaning of SESAC? The acronym stands for Society of European Stage Authors and Composers. They represent a performance rights organization that protects the rights of publishers and performers by dealing with copyright issues. While bridging that gap between artists and streamers, the body withholds the right to block public performance of music under their registered artists if deemed an infringement. The performing rights body, though significantly smaller than ASCAP and BMI, boasts of up to 30,000 registered artists and 1.5 million compositions per Variety.
Although SESAC has yet to comment on the negotiation issues that led to the pulling down of their affiliated songs from YouTube, a source confirmed the drastic decision indeed had to do with negotiations. However, contrary to YouTube’s statement suggesting they implemented the crackdown on SESAC because the deal expired, the actual deal does not expire until next week. Hence, making the move days before the expected expiration is simply “a negotiating tactic” to rattle SESAC.
YouTube Assuage Fans on Social Media
YouTube has also addressed various end users who stormed social media with complaints about their inability to access songs from their favorite artists. YouTube’s X account attempted to address some of these complaints, telling fans,
“We hear you. Our music license agreement with SESAC has expired without an agreement on renewal conditions despite our best efforts. for this reason, we have blocked content on YouTube in the US known to be associated with SESAC – as in line with copyright law.”
In a follow-up response, the video-sharing platform acknowledged that “this is a difficult situation” for end users to deal with. However they deemed it a necessary step in reaching a renewal agreement with SESAC. Recall that TikTok pulled similar strings with Universal Music Group earlier this year after failing to reach a favorable renewal agreement with the organization.
The dispute raged on for several months, with tracks from Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, and Adele remaining unavailable on the social platform until its resolution. While this strategy is fast becoming a norm among these platforms to steer the ball in their favor and has proven effective, one can’t but question where that leaves their commitment to giving subscribers the best user experience.
