On Sunday, the New York Times reported that all videos using songs owned by Warner Music Group were pulled from YouTube. Talks between WMG and Google (YouTube’s owners) had broken down (WMG is unhappy about the amount of ad revenue it’s getting from YouTube and wants more money), we were told, and so one of the parties had gone with the nuclear option. YouTube explained that this applied even to videos using WMG songs as a soundtrack, but that the video creator had the option of dropping pre-cleared music into their videos instead. But hold on! Did they really remove everything?

Nope! Take a look at the Madonna channel. Sure, her LiveNation stuff is still there, but so is all the WMG content. The label may have made a big announcement, but apparently the enforcement isn’t quite so strict. As long as the above live video of “La Isla Bonita” is up and running, you’ll know that negotiations are still ongoing.

Warner Music Removes Its Videos From YouTube as Licensing Talks Stall [NYT]
madonna’s Channel [YouTube]