YouTube music royalty contract in UK

The video-sharing website, YouTube, has come to an agreement with British licensing organisations that collect royalties on behalf of 50,000 publishers, songwriters and composers.

At a recent press conference, the MCPS-PRS Alliance (which represents creators of more than 10 million pieces of music) disclosed the deal which will allow users of the Google site to integrate recorded music legally into videos.

YouTube has agreed to pay a flat fee in exchange for licensing the library of music. Terms of the flat fee or the deal have not been divulged.

The alliance will determine how to distribute income to its members based on an approximation of what music has been played on the site. The licensing organisation is working with YouTube on how to recognise the high-profile songs that are most frequently used as background in both professional and user-generated videos posted to the site.

The deal will be a welcome boost for YouTube which has been fending off challenges by major media companies who say the site is a haven for piracy of their copyrighted works.

YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. The site was created in February 2005 by 3 former PayPal employees.