YouTube settles SESAC dispute, figure skater wins Minions clearance, Fender faces suit

Some of the most watched music on YouTube and YouTube Music disappeared on Saturday. A short message took its place: "This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country." Songs from Adele, Kendrick Lamar, Britney Spears, Green Day, Kanye West and Burna Boy were caught up in the blackout, The Verge reported on 29 September.

SESAC, the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, has existed since 1930. Its website says it licenses the public performance of more than 1.5 million songs on behalf of more than 15,000 affiliated songwriters, composers and publishers. It is smaller than BMI and ASCAP, but counts major names in its portfolio. In 2017 the private equity firm Blackstone bought it. The removal was not uniform. The Verge noted that one listing for Kanye West's "Power" was blocked while the music video version kept streaming.

YouTube told The Verge it had negotiated in good faith. Spokesperson Mariana de Felice said: "We have held good faith negotiations with SESAC to renew our existing deal. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before its expiration. We take copyright very seriously and as a result, content represented by SESAC is no longer available on YouTube in the US. We are in active conversations with SESAC and are hoping to reach a new deal as soon as possible."

An unnamed source cited by Variety suggested the timing may have been a negotiating tactic, because "the previous deal actually does not expire until next week." By Monday afternoon YouTube announced a new deal and said the missing music would be restored "over the next day or two."

A skater, a Minions routine and a late reprieve

Music clearance problems are not confined to streaming platforms. The Spanish figure skater Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté learned late last week that the short program he had performed all season, built around music from the Minions franchise, would not be cleared for the Milano Cortina Winter Games, the Guardian reported on 3 February. He had submitted the music months earlier through the International Skating Union's recommended rights-clearance process, and he had competed with it without issue, including at last month's European championships in Sheffield. On Tuesday, Universal gave him permission for what he called "this one special occasion."

"Huge THANK YOU to everyone who reposted, shared and supported. Because of you Universal Studios reconsidered and officially granted the rights for this one special occasion," Guarino Sabaté wrote on Instagram. "There are still a couple things to be tied up with the other 2 musics of the programme but we are so close to accomplishing it!"

The ISU director-general, Colin Smith, told the Guardian at last year's world championships in Boston that the problem is structural. "It's a complex issue, frankly, because the music industry has no common clearance platform," he said. "There are multiple buckets of rights, and within those buckets the clearance process isn't done on a single platform."

Other skaters have not been so lucky. The Canadian ice dancers Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac lost two Prince songs planned for their Olympic rhythm dance. The Canadian pairs skaters Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps abandoned a Phil Collins cover after a licensing quote in the tens of thousands of dollars. At the Beijing Olympics in 2022, the American pairs champions Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier faced a copyright lawsuit over a House of the Rising Sun cover. The case was later settled for an undisclosed sum understood by the Guardian to be around $1.4m.

Fender's cease-and-desists head to court

On 22 June, Guitar World reported that Thomann, which calls itself the world's largest music retailer, is suing Fender over its wave of cease-and-desist letters in the Stratocaster body-shape dispute. Thomann's in-house brand Harley Benton received one of the letters.

"After careful consideration, we have decided to take legal action," Thomann said on its blog. "We have done so because we are convinced that the questions raised here go far beyond a mere legal dispute and affect the future of diversity, innovation and competition in our industry."

The retailer was founded in 1954, the same year Fender launched the Stratocaster. It named Tyler, Tom Anderson, Suhr, LsL, Maybach, Pensa, FGN and PRS as brands it believes are now at risk. Thomann CEO Hans Thomann said: "Many of those affected do not have the financial and legal means to conduct such a legal dispute. We therefore see it as our responsibility to have this matter clarified in court not only for our own company, but for all parties involved."

Fender's legal push followed a default ruling from the Regional Court of Dusseldorf in March granting "enforceable rights against any guitars using the Stratocaster body shape" in the EU. In May it sent cease-and-desist letters to firms including LsL Instruments and PRS Guitars. Fender has framed its actions as "working directly with companies to find practical paths forward," but the letters drew backlash from guitar YouTubers, some of whom cut ties with the company.