- YouTube's music license with SESAC has expired, causing songs from certain artists to become unavailable in certain countries.
- When playing songs from European artists, user get this message, "This video contains content from SESAC."
- YouTube is in active discussions with SESAC to reach a new deal soon.
Over the weekend, you might have noticed an error when playing songs from specific artists on YouTube or YouTube Music. The error would go something like this: “This video contains content from SESAC. It’s not available in your country”. Well, you were not the only one; this was a widespread issue owing to YouTube’s music license dispute with SESAC (the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers).
People were left flustered upon seeing this message. One user took it to X, expressing their frustration. YouTube’s official account replied to their post, addressing the license dispute. This went on throughout the day. They later provided an official statement to 9to5Google, further expanding upon the situation:
“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”.
I tried playing songs from Adele and Nirvana and didn’t have any problems. So the issue could be limited to certain countries, though we cannot comment on which ones. However, given how YouTube has become a primary way for people to consume music these days. So the label should come to a licensing agreement pretty soon.
Things like this aren’t uncommon. Take a recent example of Universal removing their songs from TikTok when failing to reach a licensing agreement with the platform. So are you currently facing this issue on your end, still not able to listen to songs from your favorite European artists? Then let us know in the comments below.
