YouTube and music are putting aside their differences and making up

The ongoing case of 'Youtube vs music' is on the way to being resolved as the video website signs a licensing deal with music publishers.

New statistics from comScore show that 40% of YouTube users are using the site to watch music videos (presumably the other 60% are watching this ). This figure doesn’t even account for user-generated videos which contain music, and so is barely the tip of the iceberg of the amount of songs being listened to through the site.

In light of this, the Google-owned online video giant has signed a deal with the National Music Publishers’ Association, which means that YouTube will now be able to monetise user-created videos which contain music from artists represented by the NMPA. EMI, Universal, Warner and Sony are not covered by the deal, as they already have their own agreements with YouTube.

Cutting a long story short, this means no more copyright messages blocking access to good songs, and more money for Google – at least one of those outcomes is a reason to celebrate.

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