Interview: Patrick Walker, YouTube: PRS Rates 'Ridiculous', Would Lose Us Money
This story was written by Patrick Smith.
YouTube would lose money on every music video it serves if it accepted PRS For Music's proposed rates, the video site's EMEA region head of partnerships, Patrick Walker, has told paidContent:UK. Walker's decision to block thousands of music videos in the UK last night has at least brought the orgs back to the negotiating table - the pair are meeting for talks later today, he said.
In its first arrangement with a royalty society, YouTube in 2007 signed a special deal with PRS in which it agreed to pay a flat, advance fee to carry 10 million pieces of music. But the deal has expired and Walker pulled the tracks last night rather than renew at new rates. After PRS highlighted Google's $5.7 billion Q408 revenue, Walker told me: "We've built a service that we've invested millions in ... to suggest that, because Google's a big company, we should just suck it and pay a ridiculous rate is not something that we're going to stand by." Full interview on our sister site paidContentUK...
By Patrick Smith