In these last days, there were two main events in the field of copyright for music industry. First, Warner Music requires YouTube to remove all the music clips that “belong” to Warner music. It corresponds to the artists currently under contracts with Warner, but also songs whose rights belong to Warner although the artist is under contract with another company. Warner Music and YouTube negotiated for a long time. They were not able to converge on a repartition of advertising revenues. Warner Music estimates that the proposed value is ridiculous. This is a blow to the promises of free music through ad revenue sharing. What will be the next move? Another studio that sues YouTube? Another UGC site in target such as DailyMotion? Or an agreement between YouTube on a big music studio?

Second, MySpace has removed all the playlists of its members. RIAA is already suing the PlayList Project (see RIAA attacks project PlayList) Facing legal actions, MySpace stepped back. They removed the PlayList widget without prior notice to their users. FaceBook resists and refuses to remove PlayList. The battle continues.

2009 will be an interesting year. Will it be the year where UGC and studios will find some commercial agreements?