No Madonna For YouTube?

Warner Music announced yesterday that they will be pulling their clips from YouTube in a compensation dispute.

Warner Music Group's videos will no longer be available on YouTube due to a contract dispute between the music company and the popular video-sharing website, US media reported. Talks between the two firms over licensing agreements for Warner's music videos collapsed last week, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the negotiations.

YouTube warned users on its website that "you may notice videos that contain music owned by Warner Music Group being blocked from the site" and said sometimes licensing agreements with other companies could not be secured. "Every day we work with the music community to license your favorite music for you to use on YouTube. But music licensing is very complicated," the Google-owned video-sharing website said.

"Sometimes, if we can't reach acceptable business terms, we must part ways with successful partners," it said. Warner reportedly said it was hoping to resolve the impasse with YouTube. "We are working actively to find a resolution with YouTube that would enable the return of our artists' content to the site," Warner said in a statement, quoted by US media. "Until then, we simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide."

Warner's official YouTube channel still has many active clips at the moment, although some are now "not available."