In an agreement with the National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA) it will attempt to pay royalties for tracks with unknown owners. While the official figure was not made public, the New York Times puts it at more than $40 million. Publishers need to opt in to claim royalties.
Those who do opt in will be provided with a list and have a window in which to claim ownership of certain tracks. This opt-in period opens next Monday, December 12, and ends on February 28, 2017.
As part of the arrangement with the NMPA, the same process will be repeated over the next three years.
"It is essential that we work with digital services like YouTube... to fix the challenge of incomplete ownership information to ensure royalties are no longer unmatched and music owners are paid accurately by the platforms that rely on their work," said NMPA founder and chief executive David Israelite in a statement.
YouTube recently celebrated paying out over $1 billion in revenue to the music industry in a twelve month period, but the IFPI responded with skepticism and calls for legislation to address the "value gap" in online music consumption.
Sources and Recommended Reading:
YouTube tackles unclaimed music royalties: www.bbc.com
YouTube Reaches Settlement Over Songwriting Royalties: www.nytimes.com
Written by: James Delahunty @ 9 Dec 2016 15:19
