Azoff Tells YouTube to Remove Songs by Lennon, Eagles -- Update

By Hannah Karp 

Music mogul Irving Azoff is trying to pull his clients' songs from Google Inc.'s YouTube.

Mr. Azoff, one of the industry's most powerful talent managers, is taking on the tech giant on behalf of the 46 songwriters represented by his new company, Global Music Rights, which collects performance royalties from radio stations, digital music services, bars and nightclubs. All of GMR's songwriters had previously relied on one of the two big performing rights organizations-the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and Broadcast Music Inc.-to collect their public performance money.

A lawyer for GMR sent two letters Friday to YouTube's general counsel, demanding that the company stop playing some 20,000 of the group's songs immediately, as YouTube hadn't sought a license from the organization to do so, Mr. Azoff said. Among the compositions in GMR's catalog are songs written by John Lennon, the Eagles, Pharrell Williams, Ira Gerswhin and Smokey Robinson. (Not all the acts represented by GMR are Azoff management clients.)

On Monday GMR's lawyer sent another letter, demanding documentation of any licenses that YouTube might have.

"In defiance of our demands, it appears YouTube continues to broadcast videos containing the songs controlled by GMR, with each broadcast constituting a willful copyright infringement," wrote GMR's lawyer, Howard King.

A YouTube spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Azoff said he started the performing rights group largely out of frustration with YouTube, which he says is involved in the bulk of music's "exploitation," while providing only a tiny sliver of the industry's revenue. In his dealings with YouTube over the years as a talent manager, he said YouTube typically would ask him to prove that it didn't have licensees to use his clients' work, a nearly impossible task, he added. The company also has typically asked him to identify exactly where in its system the copyright infringement is occurring, another challenge for outsiders, he said.

"They know exactly where it's taking place," he said.

Mr. Azoff said he expects his takedown request to carry more weight now because "this time it's not a single artist that's going to go away."

He said he would be happy if YouTube simply removed the content, but would also be open to working out more acceptable economics, which he said would be "major multiples of what they currently pay."

Randy Grimmett, who helps run GMR, said his outfit is in promising talks with most other digital music services such as Pandora Media Inc. and SoundCloud, offering a new payment model that he said could result in bigger royalty checks.

YouTube is the only major user of music that "hasn't reached out to us" to license the group's music, Mr. Azoff said, even after announcing its new subscription music-video service, YouTube Music Key.

That service doesn't yet "even exist so certainly they don't have a license for our stuff," he said.

The dust up comes at the end of a prolonged period of tension between the music industry and YouTube, which spent months negotiating licenses for music it wanted to carry on Music Key. The new service will charge users a flat monthly fee for access to unlimited ad-free music and other features, similar to Spotify AB or Apple Inc.'s Beats Music.

While some record companies were holding out for better terms from YouTube, others were frustrated that the company took more than a year to launch the service, which is slated to enter a public beta-testing period this week.

Mr. Williams headlined YouTube's "NewFronts" presentation for advertisers in New York in April.

Rolfe Winkler contributed to this article.

Write to Hannah Karp at [e-mail]

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