Are you using YouTube to watch an original music video that you otherwise have to pay big bucks for? If you’re searching for original videos of music legends such as Madonna, Metallica or Kid Rock, you have run out of luck. The Warner Music Group has pulled back thousands upon thousands of videos it had so far allowed YouTube to stream, for the viewing pleasure of the millions of users and visitors YouTube has.

 

On Saturday, Warner Music Group began ordering the removal of the majority of the videos, and on Sunday only some of them remained online.

 

The issue of music video streams is a highly important one for Google, the owner of YouTube, as the Internet giant wants to expand the business of video advertising. Their desire is, of course, in sharp contrast with the intent of the media companies which are very interested in gaining profit from providing such sought-after content.

 

Google has it right when it expresses interest in music videos. Many of the users on YouTube search for music videos, proven by the fact that out of the 10 most popular videos on the video-sharing web site, 6 are music videos. Other reports indicate that 8 billion of the site’s views are generated by musicians and record labels.

 

On Friday, YouTube notified their users of the removal of not only Warner Music content, but all videos that use Warner Music. They also announced they will try, in the future, to make more “user-friendly licensing arrangements.”