YouTube settles SESAC fight as Fender faces first Stratocaster lawsuit in Germany

YouTube said on Monday afternoon that it had struck a new licensing agreement with SESAC. The deal ended the weekend blackout that removed songs by Adele, Nirvana, Kendrick Lamar, Britney Spears, Green Day, Kanye West and Burna Boy from YouTube and YouTube Music in the United States.

The company said the missing music would be restored "over the next day or two," according to The Verge. The same report noted that the outage began on Saturday, when affected videos were replaced with a message reading: "This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country."

What SESAC is, and why the catalogue vanished

SESAC stands for the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers. According to its website, cited by The Verge, it "currently licenses the public performance of more than 1.5 million songs on behalf of its 15,000+ affiliated songwriters, composers, and music publishers." The organization dates to 1930 and is smaller than BMI and ASCAP, but its portfolio includes major names. Private equity firm Blackstone acquired it in 2017.

Before the deal was announced, YouTube spokesperson Mariana de Felice told The Verge: "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."

Not everything in the SESAC repertory was blocked in the same way. The Verge found that one listing for Kanye West's "Power" was unavailable while the music video version continued to stream. An unnamed source cited by Variety suggested the takedown could be a negotiating tactic, saying "the previous deal actually does not expire until next week." SESAC itself did not comment publicly on the dispute.

In Germany, a retailer takes Fender to court

A separate copyright fight escalated on 22 June, when Thomann, which describes itself as the world's largest music retailer, confirmed it is suing Fender over the guitar maker's recent wave of cease-and-desist letters. Thomann's in-house brand Harley Benton had received one of those letters. The retailer said it is the first company to take Fender to court in the ongoing Stratocaster dispute, according to Guitar World.

"After careful consideration, we have decided to take legal action," a statement on the Thomann blog reads. "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."

Thomann said it is acting on behalf of other brands and smaller manufacturers, naming "custom shop brands and innovators" including Tyler, Tom Anderson, Suhr, LsL, Maybach, Pensa, FGN and PRS as companies it believes are now at risk. The retailer was founded in 1954, the same year Fender launched the Stratocaster, and has carried the brand for more than 70 years. It says Fender's action against longstanding partners "surprised and disappointed us."

"We used to be a small music store ourselves and know exactly where we have come from," says Thomann CEO Hans Thomann. "Diversity, fairness and respectfully dealing with each other have always been part of our philosophy. 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."

The legal argument Thomann plans to pursue mirrors the position of industry lawyer Ronald Bienstock: that the Stratocaster is not a copyrightable work of art, as the Dusseldorf court has ruled, and that its design and success stem from ergonomics. Fender's recent moves trace back to a default ruling issued by the Regional Court of Dusseldorf in March, which granted "enforceable rights against any guitars using the Stratocaster body shape" in the EU. In May, cease-and-desist letters went out to firms including family-owned LsL Instruments and PRS Guitars. Fender has framed its actions as "working directly with companies to find practical paths forward," but the campaign drew criticism from prominent YouTubers, some of whom cut ties with the company.

Skating, Huawei and CanLII: the same problem in different rooms

Music clearance also intruded on the Winter Olympics. Spanish figure skater Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté, a six-time national champion, learned late last week that his short program, built around music from the Minions films, would not be cleared for Olympic use, the Guardian reported on 3 February. He had submitted the music through the International Skating Union's recommended rights-clearance process months earlier and had skated the program all season, including at the European championships in Sheffield.

Universal then reversed course. "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. He added that "there are still a couple things to be tied up with the other 2 musics of the programme."

ISU director-general Colin Smith told the Guardian 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. Tracking tools have improved, but the facilitated process just isn't there." Smith said he had held direct talks with major rights-holders and that the ISU is working with the IOC on a "multi-pronged approach."

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

Architecture produced a quieter dispute. Canadian glass artist Victoria Balva wrote that she was contacted about a large stained and leaded glass skylight being built for Huawei's headquarters in Shenzhen, and that the rendering resembled her own domes and ceilings. She wrote to Japanese design firm Nikken, which conducted an internal investigation and accepted that an employee had looked at her designs, then appointed a Toronto lawyer. Nikken's lawyer, Tony Prenol of Blakes, handled the matter; Balva engaged Yuri Chumak of Chumack and Company. A new design was eventually submitted for her approval. She wrote that it still contained a couple of minor elements from her work but no longer looked similar overall, and that the case has not been fully resolved. She said four months of her professional life were lost.

And in Canada, the Canadian Legal Information Institute and Vancouver-based AI startup Caseway AI settled a copyright dispute. CanLII sued in the British Columbia Supreme Court in November 2024, alleging Caseway built a business by taking CanLII's work through a bulk and systemic download without permission or compensation. On Friday, the two announced they had "resolved all matters arising from the proceeding." Terms are confidential. Caseway said the outcome "represents a clear shift away from attempting to slow technological progress through litigation and toward defining how it can operate within established systems."