When it comes to music streaming services, YouTube isn’t officially championed as the likes of Pandora and Spotify. But you can bet your pirating dollars that there’s rarely a song you can’t find from a quick search on the video behemoth’s bottomless search engine.
Music industry veteran Irving Azoff is looking to change that. Especially for his A-list music star clients that include The Voice stars Christina Aguilera, Pharrell and legends like Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac.
The Wall Street Journal has learned that Azoff and his new company Global Music Rights have sent YouTube notice for the removal of nearly 20,000 songs of 46 of his famous clients. According to Engadget, Azoff has squared off with YouTube in the past, somewhat unsuccessfully after he was asked to show the nearly impossible exact instances where the songs were missing licenses and infringing on the artists’ rights.
This latest duel looks to be more of the same as a Google spokesman told WSJ that the company has a new Music Key service that contain all of the rights for the music they currently harbor. Azoff is discrediting these new music rights but the end game sounds like a like of litigation and paperwork that might leave the case spiraling into nowhere.
Global Music Rights was created to collect performance royalties for songs played on digital music services, radio stations and even nightclubs. It sounds like it has the artist’s best interest in mind (especially if you’re an artist named Aloe Blacc) but nearly every YouTube player has a mandatory ad tacked on the beginning of it. This new game is already big business.
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Photo: WENN.com/FayesVision
