Warner Music Re-Allows YouTube to Feature its Videos

Take a spin with us in the way-back machine, to ancient history: December of last year. Eleventh-hour negotiations between Warner Music Group and YouTube broke down, and Warner decided to pull (or mute) all their music on the video-sharing website. Now, this had more to do with YouTube's enormous popularity than any specific beef; musicians and record labels account for a huge percentage of pageviews on the 'Tube, and record labels don't see too much ad revenue in return.

Fortunately for music junkies everywhere, the ink had barely dried on the divorce papers when an annulment was announced. As reported by AdAge, Warner has completed a deal that will allow its artists' videos and music to be put back on YouTube. And a collective "Booyah!" echoed across the interwebs with the realization that there will be far fewer of those annoying "copyright claim" notices on Metallica's videos.

The deal was mostly procedural. Evidently, the two companies have been in talks since summer to reach some kind of truce, and YouTube simply needed time to encode and upload Warner's content. And though the agreement hasn't been officially announced yet, this paves the way for talks for Warner to join YouTube's joint project with Universal Music: Vevo.

So while we wait to hear more on that, take heart that you've just been given the green light to continue working on your Weezer-soundtracked Molly Ringwald fan-video. Phew!

YouTube.com

WarnerMusicGroup.com

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