Google, using a carrot-and-stick approach of negotiation and music blackouts, is beginning to root out the legal hurdles to YouTube’s growth in Europe.
p
In Europe, YouTube is still perceived in some circles as an illicit conduit for bootleg music.
p
In France, a government study in January suggested a special advertising tax on YouTube, the dominant site for streaming music video, to reimburse musicians. In Germany, the producer of the British singer Sarah Brightman, together with the German music royalties group, are suing Google, which owns YouTube, over copyrighted songs and videos on the site.
p
But increasingly, these challenges appear to be the exceptions as Google, using a carrot-and-stick approach of negotiation and music blackouts, begins to root out the legal hurdles to YouTube’s growth in Europe. Since September 2009, despite its legal challenges in Germany, Google has signed royalty agreements with music copyright collecting societies in seven European countries representing more than half of the European online music market.
p
For Google, the deals are a boon in that they allow the search engine to bring in new revenue by placing advertisements next to highly viewed music videos. For musicians, the pacts provide a foothold online, an increasingly important distribution channel.
p
YouTube took another step forward in Europe on Sept. 30 when Sacem, the powerful French music copyright group, signed an agreement with Google that allowed YouTube to air French music videos on its site in France through 2012. The French pact, which covers roughly 40 million works by Sacem’s 132,000 members, followed similar agreements in Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Italy and the Czech Republic.
p
The tide has turned, said Patrick Walker, director of YouTube partnerships at Google in Europe. There is a bit of a domino effect that occurs, but I do believe there is confidence over all. The confidence was always there from the…