YouTube to Use JRC Copyrighted Songs

Mar 28, 2008 18:51 Tomohisa Takei, Nikkei Electronics

Japan Rights Clearance Inc (JRC), a company managing musical copyrights and Google Inc, which runs the "YouTube" video sharing Website, announced March 27, 2008, that they had reached a comprehensive agreement to allow YouTube to use music under JRC's management.

Following this agreement, users will be able to post videos of someone playing or singing songs licensed by JRC and share them with other users through YouTube. The companies said, however, they will "refrain from revealing" details of the agreement including the fees for music use.

JRC was formed primarily by record producers and began its management business in April 2002. The company is managing about 5,000 tracks including those by Japanese famous artists such as Mr. Children and Spitz.

Its royalty sales were about ¥900 million (a rough estimate, US$8.97 million) in the year ending March 2008, approximately 0.8% compared with royalty sales (roughly ¥111.1 billion in the year ended March 2007) at Japan's largest music copyright management organization, Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC).

In accordance with this agreement, relevant artists and record companies will be able to use YouTube for their promotion activities. Consequently, some record companies, which hold artists that are contracting copyright management to JRC, have announced that they will open their official channels on YouTube.

For Life Music Entertainment Inc will open its official channel to stream promotion videos and live videos of its artists including Double, Bennie K and Fuyumi Abe on April 4, 2008. Meanwhile, Danger Crue Inc, an independent label, opened its "Danger Crue Records Channel" to deliver promotion videos of its artists such as Mucc, Sid and Girugamesh on March 27.

JASRAC already has agreements with Yahoo! and Sony

This is reportedly Google's first contract concerning music use on YouTube with a copyright management company in Japan. A total of 24 copyright holders organizations and operators including JASRAC has been discussing with Google measures to prevent copyright violations on YouTube, but the two parties have not reached an agreement at present. JRC was not included in these 24 organizations.

Meanwhile, JASRAC has signed agreements with Yahoo Japan Corp and Sony Corp and allowed them to use songs under its management in their "Yahoo! Video Cast" and "eyeVio" services, respectively.

24 Hours | 7 Days