Just received this e-mail. This, seems to me, is big news. If you don’t know who The Harry Fox Agency is check out their website www.harryfox.com. Comments anyone?
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Dear Publisher or Society:
The National Music Publishers’ Association (“NMPA”), The Harry Fox Agency (“HFA”) and YouTube are excited to offer to all independent music publishers, whether or not affiliated with HFA, and non-U.S. mechanical collection societies who have entered into reciprocal agreements with HFA, the opportunity to opt into a direct license agreement with YouTube that will be administered by HFA (the “YouTube Licensing Offer”). NMPA and HFA have negotiated the terms of the License Agreement with YouTube for the benefit of music publishers.
A complete description of the YouTube Licensing Offer, as well as the forms and links that are necessary for you to opt into the YouTube Licensing Offer, are located at WWW.YOUTUBELICENSEOFFER.COM. Publishers can opt in through that website using the claim and control numbers provided above. Contemporaneously with this e-mail notice, we will mail you a packet of materials, including the YouTube Licensing Offer Overview and Opt-In Agreement. (Please note that if you represent multiple publishers, we will mail you a separate packet for each one.) Publishers can also obtain additional information about the program by calling toll free at 1 (888) 430-7225.
The Opt-In Period begins on November 17, 2011 and ends on January 16, 2012. The submission of all necessary forms must be completed electronically through the website WWW.YOUTUBELICENSEOFFER.COM or received by us no later than January 16, 2012 in order for a publisher to participate in the advance described in the YouTube Licensing Offer Overview. This deadline cannot be extended. The NMPA strongly encourages all interested music publishers to carefully review the detailed information in this offer.
To whom it may concern,
Does this mean we are going to be paid by youtube if we enter our music on youtube?
I can’t remember what it was, but youtube wanted me to join as the writer to some stuff I have already posted on youtube.It never did say what the split was between us and them.
A direct license with You Tube will allow them to pay you pennies on the dollar and NOT pay you any residuals for your work. I imagine the Harry Fox sees and opportunity to commission for your share of this Direct license (when you can do this deal directly with You Tube if you do the footwork). If you have any industry presence at all you should not do this in my estimation (dare I say this without more research, forgive me). I am told the best thing you can do is “claim” your music as it appears on You Tube and receive your residuals against ad revenue they generate from those clips your music appears on. I would look into it yourself, these situations are evolving as we speak.
Viva la Musicians. We are all in this mess together!!!!
D
Not sure what to make off this, I’m happy You Tube are gonna pay something but companies like APM, Killer, Mega etc are gonna get 99% of this while guys like us are gonna get like 10 cent. Not sure if it’s worth giving up any future claims for that.
Would love to hear some other opinions on this…..
Thanks for posting this.
I like that You tube are gonna pay something but I’m not sure what to make of this, I mean companies like APM, Killer, Mega ect. will get 99% of this and guys like us will get like 10 cent and we’re giving up any claim to future settlements etc.
Would love here some other opinions about this….
Interesting, will be looking into this more…
Art, I am assuming this would be for writers or publishers who have had videos on You Tube as opposed to audio only.
No, this would be agreeing to direct license your music to YouTube as a publisher. Harry Fox collects mechanical income for publishers and part of this agreement is a settlement, with YouTube, over a lawsuit brought by The National Music Publishers’ Association.
Is this something else that would cause problems for people licensing our tracks from another library to use on youtube, then it gets flagged so they can’t use it?
Please see https://musiclibraryreport.com/blog/newbie-info/