YouTube Makes Music Royalty Deal

The MCPS-PRS Alliance is a UK organization with over 50,000 members; the organization exists to deliver royalties to its members, who are mainly music writers, composers and publishers.  And according to a new deal, some of those royalties will come from YouTube.

The exact amount of the agreed-upon flat fee remains unknown - heck, even an official ballpark is unavailable - so it’s hard to know how to treat this news.  The development may stave off a copyright infringement lawsuit or two, which would certainly be valuable to YouTube.  Then again, so would keeping cash in its pocket, and the company’s lawyers are quite good.

Another unclear issue is the matter of what will happen from this point forward.  “All four major record labels have now made licensing deals which mean they take a share of the advertising revenue when YouTube carries their music,” notes Jonathan Richards for the