YouTube restores pulled songs after SESAC deal, as copyright fights multiply

Songs from Adele, Nirvana, Britney Spears, Green Day, Kanye West and Burna Boy disappeared on Saturday. Viewers who tried to play them saw a message: "This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country." The Verge reported the outage on 29 September, citing YouTube spokesperson Mariana de Felice.

De Felice said the company had "held good faith negotiations with SESAC to renew our existing deal" and could not reach an equitable agreement before it expired. "We take copyright very seriously and as a result, content represented by SESAC is no longer available on YouTube in the US," she said. Talks were continuing, she added.

What SESAC is

SESAC stands for the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers. Its website says it licenses the public performance of more than 1.5 million songs for 15,000-plus affiliated songwriters, composers and music publishers. The organisation has existed since 1930. The private equity firm Blackstone bought it in 2017. It is smaller than BMI and ASCAP.

The Verge noted that not every track listed in SESAC's repertory appeared to be blocked. A listing for Kanye West's "Power" was restricted, while the music video continued to stream. Variety, citing an unnamed source, reported the previous deal did not expire until the following week, which suggests a negotiating tactic. SESAC itself did not comment publicly.

Not only platforms

The same week, TorrentFreak reported that the Dutch Supreme Court had referred three questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union over the Diary of Anne Frank. The Anne Frank Fonds, set up by Otto Frank in 1963 in Switzerland, owns the copyrights. The original manuscripts are protected in the Netherlands until 2037. The Dutch Anne Frank Stichting blocks Dutch visitors from its scholarly edition.

The Fonds argues that geo-blocking is not enough, because users can bypass it with a VPN, and that the site is partly directed at a Dutch audience. The lower court and the appeal court both dismissed that argument. The CJEU is now asked whether a publication counts as a communication to the public in a country where state-of-the-art blocking is in place, and whether circumvention by VPN changes who is liable.

Other disputes show the pattern is not confined to music streaming. The Guardian reported on 3 February that Spanish figure skater Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté had his Minions-themed Olympic short program cleared by Universal only after fans campaigned, days before the men's singles event begins on 10 February in Milan. The ISU director-general, Colin Smith, told the Guardian the music industry has "no common clearance platform".

In Canada, the legal database CanLII and Vancouver AI startup Caseway AI settled a copyright suit filed in the BC Supreme Court in November 2024 over an alleged bulk download of CanLII's database. BetaKit reported on 26 March that terms are confidential and both sides will move on independently. Separately, Guitar World reported on 22 June that retailer Thomann is suing Fender over Stratocaster cease-and-desist letters, arguing the body shape is not a copyrightable work of art.