By Hannah Karp
Music mogul Irving Azoff is trying to pull his clients' songs
from Google Inc.'s YouTube.
Mr. Azoff, one of the industry's most powerful talent managers,
is taking on the tech company on behalf of the 46 songwriters
represented by his new company, Global Music Rights, which collects
performance royalties from radio stations, digital music services,
bars and nightclubs. All of GMR's songwriters had previously relied
on one of the two big performing rights organizations-the American
Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and Broadcast Music
Inc.-to collect their public performance money.
A lawyer for GMR sent two letters Friday to YouTube's general
counsel, demanding that the company stop playing some 20,000 of the
group's songs immediately, as YouTube hadn't sought a license from
the organization to do so, Mr. Azoff said. Among the compositions
in GMR's catalog are songs written by John Lennon, the Eagles,
Pharrell Williams, Ira Gerswhin and Smokey Robinson. (Not all the
acts represented by GMR are Azoff management clients.)
On Monday GMR's lawyer sent another letter, demanding
documentation of any licenses that YouTube might have.
"In defiance of our demands, it appears YouTube continues to
broadcast videos containing the songs controlled by GMR, with each
broadcast constituting a willful copyright infringement," wrote
GMR's lawyer, Howard King.
A Google spokesman responded that it has struck deals with
labels, publishers, license-collection groups and others for its
new subscription music-video service, YouTube Music Key and would
continue to work on such deals.
Mr. Azoff said he started the performing rights group largely
out of frustration with YouTube, which he says is involved in the
bulk of music's "exploitation," while providing only a tiny sliver
of the industry's revenue. In his dealings with YouTube over the
years as a talent manager, he said YouTube typically would ask him
to prove that it didn't have licensees to use his clients' work, a
nearly impossible task, he added. The company also has typically
asked him to identify exactly where in its system the copyright
infringement is occurring, another challenge for outsiders, he
said.
"They know exactly where it's taking place," he said.
Mr. Azoff said he expects his takedown request to carry more
weight now because "this time it's not a single artist that's going
to go away."
He said he would be happy if YouTube simply removed the content,
but would also be open to working out more acceptable economics,
which he said would be "major multiples of what they currently
pay."
Randy Grimmett, who helps run GMR, said his outfit is in
promising talks with most other digital music services such as
Pandora Media Inc. and SoundCloud, offering a new payment model
that he said could result in bigger royalty checks.
YouTube is the only major user of music that "hasn't reached out
to us" to license the group's music, Mr. Azoff said, even after
announcing Music Key.
That service doesn't yet "even exist so certainly they don't
have a license for our stuff," he said.
The dust up comes at the end of a prolonged period of tension
between the music industry and YouTube, which spent months
negotiating licenses for music it wanted to carry on Music Key. The
new service will charge users a flat monthly fee for access to
unlimited ad-free music and other features, similar to Spotify AB
or Apple Inc.'s Beats Music.
While some record companies were holding out for better terms
from YouTube, others were frustrated that the company took more
than a year to launch the service, which is slated to enter a
public beta-testing period this week.
Mr. Williams headlined YouTube's "NewFronts" presentation for
advertisers in New York in April.
Rolfe Winkler contributed to this article.
Write to Hannah Karp at hannah.karp@wsj.com
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