Under the terms of agreement YouTube users will be able to incorporate any of the 10 million copyrighted British songs in their amateur or professional videos.
“We‘re pleased to be working in cooperation with the
MCPS-PRS Alliance to provide the YouTube community in the
YouTube will pay a flat fee, and the MCPS-PRS will be responsible to split the money between its members.
According to MCPS-PRS Alliance the revenues will be distributed
through a scheme based on an estimate of how often the content provided by
“Whether it is music videos, user uploads or other audio visual content, our agreement will allow our 50,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members to be paid when their creative talents are being enjoyed on YouTube’s service across the UK.” said Steve Porter, Chief Executive of the MCPS-PRS Alliance.
In June, YouTube has launched www.youtube.co.uk , the British version of its website, which allows for country-specific video rankings and comments, as well as Video, Channel, Categories and Community sections.
Since acquiring YouTube for $1.65bn in October 2006, Google and Eric Schmidt, its CEO, have made important efforts to forge relationships with traditional media companies.
Last month there were reports that YouTube is working "very intensely and cooperating" with major content providers on a video recognition technology as sophisticated as fingerprint technology the FBI uses.
The technology, which was developed by Google, was mentioned for the first time in April. Speaking at National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas, Eric Schmidt, Google CEO said the new technology, which he called "Claim Your Content," any legitimate copyright holder can register videos they made. Then any copies uploaded onto YouTube will be filtered out.
YouTube has also signed deals with music companies including Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment that will allow consumers to use some of their music in the creation of videos.