YouTube and YouTube Music missing songs due to expired ‘SESAC’ license

Due to a licensing dispute with SESAC, a ton of songs have been removed from YouTube and YouTube Music in the US. YouTube remains in “active conversations with SESAC and are hoping to reach a new deal as soon as possible.”

Over the past day, YouTube Music users in the US have encountered songs marked with an exclamation mark that cannot be played or tapped in the list view. There’s also a fullscreen Now Playing error message: “Song unavailable – This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country.”

On main YouTube, there are no pre-warnings and you can open these music videos, but the aforementioned error then appears in the player.

SESAC “represents songwriter’s and publisher’s copyrighted musical works and their right under the Copyright Law to publicly perform those works inside businesses. Essentially, anytime music is performed, played, or broadcast to the public, a license from the copyright holder is required.”

SESAC offers a blanket license agreement that is recognized as the most convenient and cost-effective method to obtain the required authorization to publicly perform all of the copyrighted music in the SESAC repertory.

The organization touts ” top-selling affiliates such as Adele, R.E.M., Jack Harlow, Bob Dylan, and Neil Diamond,” with “over 1.5 million songs” in total. Impacted albums still appear in YouTube Music artist pages. In the case of Adele, her earlier albums still appear but nearly every song is gone. Newer music, however, remains available.

Officially, YouTube is telling users that its “music license agreement with SESAC has expired without an agreement on renewal conditions despite our best efforts. for this reason, we have blocked content on YouTube in the US known to be associated with SESAC – as in line with copyright law.”

YouTube shared the following statement with us:

“We have held good faith negotiations with SESAC to renew our existing deal. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before its expiration. 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.”

–YouTube spokesperson

You typically associate these content licensing disputes with YouTube TV and cable providers.

Be sure to chime in with what songs, albums, and artists are missing for you.

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