EMI Wants YouTube Crackdown

EMI Music Publishing is in talks with YouTube, Revver and other video sites about helping to to he monitor the use of its copyrights in unauthorized music videos that are posted to these sites.

"We’re actively trying to strike relationships (with user-generated video sites) for the showing of our music videos," Thomas Ryan, EMI Music’s senior vice president of digital and mobile strategy said at the Piper Jaffray Global Internet Summit according to cNet’s News.com.

Since the use of music in videos or TV is heavily restricted and must be licensed individually, it will be interesting to watch how far labels and publishers go with enforcement.  While some argue that established artists and older material does not benefit from exposure on YouTube, many labels and managers of developing acts are encouraging fans to to upload material and in some cases labels are even placing official videos on these sites.