Global Music Rights (GMR), the new music rights management organization that has clients including Pharrell Williams, The Eagles and John Lennon, has filed a lawsuit against YouTube for the removal of 20 videos of its artists, or otherwise face coming soon to a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Irving Azoff, founder of the Global Music Rights organization, which currently represents more than 40 artists including Chris Cornell, John Lennon, Pharrell Williams, Elton John, The Eagles and Smokee Robinson to name a few, assured the press that YouTube does not own the rights of use of thousands of songs that it disseminates on its platform to its clients.
Azoff detailed that beyond YouTube has negotiated contracts with record labels, these companies have not done the same with the artists, therefore GMR clients want to sue YouTube since they have not been cooperative and both GMR and its clients feel that they are the most harmed by the use of your artwork on the popular video platform.
This demand coincides with the plan of Google (owner of YouTube) to launch next year its new music streaming service called music-key, for which YouTube claims to have all the rights to broadcast the music mentioned in the lawsuit due to previous agreements with the labels. However, in a letter to YouTube earlier this month, Howard King, an attorney for Global Music Rights, noted that YouTube has not yet publicly released details of such agreements involving the rights of its clients.