Adele, Bob Dylan Songs Blocked by YouTube in Legal Dispute

Songs by Adele, Bob Dylan, Green Day, R.E.M., Burna Boy, Rush and many others are currently unplayable on YouTube in the U.S. due to a legal dispute between the platform and the performing rights organization SESAC.

Attempts to play many, but not all, songs by those artists on Saturday met with the following message: “This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country.”

A similar dispute between Universal Music Group and TikTok raged on for several months earlier this year before being resolved.

In a statement to Variety, a YouTube rep 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.” Reps for SESAC did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A source close to the situation tells Variety that the previous deal actually does not expire until next week, and suggests that YouTube’s move is a negotiating tactic. SESAC is far smaller than ASCAP and BMI — with approximately 30,000 members and 1.5 million compositions while ASCAP has nearly 800,000 members — but as the caliber of artists affected by the block shows, it represents a comparatively large percentage of the marketplace.

Performing rights organizations, such as ASCAP, BMI and SESAC in the U.S., collect royalties and help protect copyrights on behalf of songwriters and music publishers. They have the ability to block certain public performances of music — which entails everything from streaming to radio to music played in restaurants — although such bans are laborious and difficult to enforce, even for a platform as large as YouTube, as evidenced by the seemingly scattered blockage of SESAC material on the platform at the moment.

Such blocks are legally complex and can involve other copyright holders (for example a live Green Day recording made by the U.K. broadcaster the BBC is currently available, suggesting a legal wrinkle), although it may also reflect the sheer volume of videos that must be blocked. Relatedly, certain songs performed by Beyonce, Nicki Minaj and other artists are also affected, presumably because they feature SESAC-affiliated songwriters.

Fans were quick to notice the block, and received the following responses on Saturday from the TeamYouTube account on X (formerly Twitter).

“we hear you,” it reads. “our music license agreement with SESAC has expired without an agreement on renewal conditions despite our best efforts. for this reason, we have blocked content on YouTube in the US known to be associated with SESAC – as in line with copyright law.”

It responded to frustrated follow-up tweets from users by saying “we understand this is a difficult situation and our teams continue to work on reaching a renewal agreement,” and “we’re continuing our discussions with SESAC to reach an agreement, but do not have any exact dates for future updates yet.”

Such blocks are a common when rights-holders (such as record labels, publishers and PROs) and a broadcaster cannot come to terms on a licensing agreement, and usually do not last for more than a few days or weeks. However, along with the bruising UMG-TikTok battle earlier this year, one such dispute between YouTube and Warner Music Group resulted in Warner pulling its videos from the platform for some nine months across 2008 and 2009 before terms were reached.

In the intervening years YouTube’s formerly contentious relationship with music companies has become much more positive, ironically after the company hired former Warner recorded music chief Lyor Cohen as its head of music in 2016. However, as music fans learned on Saturday, disputes still occur.

Variety will have more on the situation as it develops.

Additional reporting by Steven J. Horowitz