If you go to YouTube right now and search for the video for Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” it’s very likely that you won’t see footage of a power trio combining angst with distorted guitars. Instead, you’re likely to see a message saying that the video is unavailable. “This video contains content from SESAC,” the message reads. “It is not available in your country.”
The same is the case for music by the likes of Adele, Green Day and Kendrick Lamar. What’s behind this outage of numerous beloved musicians on a popular audio and video streaming platform? The answer has to do with one part of that error message — its reference to the performance rights organization SESAC.
As Carly Thomas explained in an article for The Hollywood Reporter, negotiations between YouTube and SESAC were unable to reach an outcome agreeable to both parties. “We take copyright very seriously and as a result, content represented by SESAC is no longer available on YouTube in the US,” a YouTube spokesperson told Thomas. “We are in active conversations with SESAC and are hoping to reach a new deal as soon as possible.”
Advocacy Group Calls for Government Investigation of Music Streaming
Their paper makes a convincing argumentUnfortunately for music lovers, this dispute isn’t the first of its kind to affect music online. The Hollywood Reporter noted the clash between Universal and TikTok earlier this year, which took a significant amount of music off of the social network, at least temporarily. Earlier this month, performance rights organization BMI filed a lawsuit against SiriusXM over a royalty issue.
If you’re on the fence about the appeal of physical media, situations like this go a long way towards explaining one argument in favor of it. After all, a rights dispute isn’t going to render your vinyl or CDs temporarily unplayable.
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