Blocking of YouTube videos in Germany

According to Google, GEMA sought to raise its fee charged to YouTube to a "prohibitive" 12 Eurocent per streamed video—a claim that is disputed by GEMA spokesperson Bettina Müller stating their proposal was 1 Eurocent only plus a breakdown by composer. The issue is set to be taken up by a California court. Google, the world's biggest Internet search engine company, partly lost a German copyright infringement suit over how much it must do to remove illegal music videos from its YouTube website. A study sponsored by the video hosting website MyVideo estimated that 61.5% of the 1000 most viewed YouTube clips are blocked in Germany. This is significantly higher than, for example, in the United States (0.9%) or in Switzerland (1.2%). Another study found that around 3% of all YouTube videos, and 10% of those videos with over a million views, are blocked in Germany. ==Effects==

Sony Music's CEO of international business, Edgar Berger, said in an interview in February 2012 that the Internet is a blessing for the music industry. Nevertheless, there are still problems that have to be overcome, such as restrictive copyright enforcement by music rights collecting agencies. Berger claims that YouTube revenue running into the millions is being lost because GEMA's policies prevent artist's videos from being shown online in the country. Conversely, it can be questioned how much of this lost revenue would have actually benefitted GEMA members, given that licensing agreements in other territories are subject to a confidentiality agreement that prevents even the membership of the collecting societies from knowing the royalty rates. An academic study by Tobias Kretschmer and Christian Peukert published in 2020 shows that the blocking of music videos decreased recorded music sales in Germany by about 5%–10%. The effect is much stronger (more negative) for newcomer artists, and less strong (less negative) for mainstream artists. Also, German artists suffered relatively less from the YouTube blackout and gained market share as a result. ==Reception==

GEMA's stance has elicited considerable criticism from Google and foreign record companies. Edgar Berger, CEO of Sony Music Entertainment in Munich, told Billboard: "I suspect that some members of GEMA's supervisory board have not yet arrived in the digital era. We want to see streaming services like VEVO and Spotify in the German market. Spotify must not be blocked by GEMA any longer. Artists and music companies are losing sales in the millions". == Agreement ==

On 31 October 2016, GEMA released a press statement stating that YouTube will pay GEMA for video views of GEMA-protected artists. No further details regarding payment were disclosed. ==References==