That video in particular, when viewed from Germany, results in this error message: “Sorry, this video, which includes music from [Sony Music Entertainment], is not available in Germany because GEMA has not granted the publishing rights thereto.”
When Ars asked GEMA via Twitter how it even knew whether it held the rights to the song in question, the group’s spokesperson, Ursula Goebel, simply wrote (German): “YouTube apparently blocks arbitrarily.”
Last month, GEMA wrote in a statement that Google’s German-language messages are “extremely misleading.”
“The displayed text gives the false impression that GEMA is categorically refusing to license the use of works of music,” wrote Harald Heker, GEMA’s CEO.
“GEMA has, on the contrary, always been willing to grant YouTube a license and YouTube has always had the option of acquiring a license itself in accordance with the legal regulations. For reasons that are unclear to us, YouTube has in the past not been prepared to go down this route. We have so far purposely avoided taking legal steps so as not to encumber the ongoing negotiations with further legal proceedings.”
In the same statement, though, GEMA said it wants royalty rates of a “per stream rate of €0.00375 ($0.005).” The organization has taken this dispute to the Arbitration Board of the German Patent and Trademark Office. In the meantime, GEMA adds that its talks with YouTube had been “broken off.”
GEMA did not respond to Ars’ request to pay €0.00375 to GEMA so that a friend in Germany could see the video in question.
(Hat tip: Nick Shchetko)