Pharrell Williams to sue YouTube $1 billion over copyright

source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/64459010/pharrell-williams-to-sue-youtube-1-billion-over-copyright

Pharrell Williams to sue YouTube $1 billion over copyright

MICHAEL KOZIOL



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Global Music Rights represents US singer Pharrell Williams in potential lawsuit against YouTube over copyright.


Even at Christmas, there is little respite for YouTube's hard-working army of lawyers.

The company is again being threatened with legal action, this time by a conglomerate of artists including the Eagles and Pharrell Williams who assert that the video site has infringed their copyright.

Music industry manager Irving Azoff claims YouTube has failed to demonstrate it has the performance rights to about 20,000 songs belonging to artists represented by his newly-created outfit, Global Music Rights. Within the GMR catalogue are tracks by John Lennon, Smokey Robinson, George and Ira Gershwin and Chris Cornell.

Of the many content providers such as Spotify that are aggrieving traditional music publishers, Azoff says YouTube and owner Google are the "worst offenders".

"They are the ones that have been least cooperative," he told the Hollywood Reporter. "It's also their attitude."

The stoush is shrouded in unknowns and no lawsuit has yet been filed, though it was reported the case could be worth up to $US1 billion.

YouTube insists it has multi-year licenses to the works but will not identify them or explain their origin. The three major US performing rights organisations – BMI, ASCAP and SESAC – do issue such licenses, and Azoff and his lawyers are demanding to see them.

"Obviously, if YouTube contends that it has properly licensed any of the songs for public broadcast, a contention we believe to be untrue, demand is hereby made that we be furnished with documentation of such licenses," wrote Howard King, a lawyer hired by GMR, in a letter to YouTube earlier this month.

The move comes ahead of YouTube's planned launch of Music Key, a subscription service similar to Spotify and Pandora for music, videos and live concert clips. Azoff also wants the 20,000 songs removed from the Music Key catalogue.

YouTube took off in 2006 and was purchased by Google later that year. It now boasts more than 1 billion unique browsers each month, with 80 per cent of traffic coming from outside the US. In excess of 100 hours of content are uploaded to the site every minute.
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Those who take on Goliath better watch out. YouTube has dodged several bullets over the years, including a $1 billion lawsuit filed by Viacom, a cinema and television company, in 2007.

A US court ruled in 2010 that YouTube lacked specific knowledge about what copyrighted material had been uploaded and by whom, and that the site had taken sufficient steps to order the removal of unlicensed material. Viacom won concessions on appeal but ultimately the matter was settled out of court earlier this year.

A French television network that sought damages from YouTube also lost out in Paris courts. In 2009, Italian television firm Mediaset (run by the country's controversial former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi) had some success, winning the court-ordered removal of some – but not all – of its content from the website.

But Azoff shows little sign of being scared into submission. In November he posted a series of tweets declaring: "YouTube knows it lacks any license from GMR and refuses to prove the basis for any other rights to perform GMR writers' songs.

"YouTube's knowledge and direct financial involvement makes them serial and willful copyright infringers.

"YouTube will get no protection from any claimed legal 'safe harbors'."

A YouTube spokesperson told the Hollywood Reporter "we've done deals with labels, publishers, collection societies and more" to ensure music was properly licensed, including on Music Key.

- SMH