Mountain View, California-based Google has blocked or removed thousands of music videos from its video  sharing site YouTube after failing to agree on a renewed licensing agreement with Warner Music Group, the companies announced Friday. On Saturday users of the most popular video sharing site in the world began losing access to Warner Music content, such a music videos from artists such as Led Zeppelin, Metallica, and Madonna, and user generated videos that feature music from these and other Warner artists. First Company To Sign Licensing Pact With YouTube Began Pulling Videos Saturday Warner was the first major music label to sign a licensing agreement with YouTube, shortly before the video sharing site was purchased by Google in a stock deal worth 1.65 billion dollars in 2006, and on Friday became with first to remove its artists' content from YouTube after failing to negotiate a new deal. Warner Music said that it "simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide," according to a statement issued by the company. Among the music rights Warner owns is the classic song "Happy Birthday To You." YouTube, which has said that "music licensing is very complicated," began blocking access to Warner Music content on Saturday. "Videos that contain music owned by Warner Music Group [are] being blocked from the site," YouTube wrote in a message announcing the change posted Friday on the company's blog. YouTube Recommends Audioswap Service The popularity of YouTube has grown abruptly since being acquired by YouTube, although monetization efforts have not managed to match the pace, at lease not yet, despite increased efforts by Google to bring in additional revenue from the video service such as its Content ID system. YouTube recommended that consumers worried about accidentally using Warner Music content could use its music gathering service called Audioswap, "a one-of-a-kind library of pre-cleared music ready for you to drop into your videos any time," YouTube noted in the Friday announcement. "We understand this might be frustrating for some of you, and we're sorry about that," YouTube added. It has been estimated that over one billion video views on YouTube have contained Warner Music content from its labels such as Atlantic Records and Warner Bros. Warner said that it was seeking to find a resolution to 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. YouTube Music Pulled As Deal With Warner Falls Through YouTube and Warner Music have been unable to agree on the amount of money Warner should receive each time a YouTube user views a video containing Warner content, although details of the amounts involved were not released. The two companies have also been unable to reach agreement over when Warner should be paid, either before or after actual video views on YouTube, according to published reports citing an anonymous Warner employee with knowledge of the negotiations. Warner, which has said that its licensing agreement with YouTube expired earlier this year, has sought to rely more on digital music sales and licensing fees as revenue from more traditional CD sales have decreased. Social networking service MySpace and Time Warner Inc.'s Internet services group AOL have licensing agreements in place with Warner that were expected to continue to allow Web users to view Warner content online. In July Italy's largest private broadcaster Mediaset, controlled by the country's billionaire Prime Mediaset Minister Silvio Berlusconi, announced that it had sued YouTube for the illegal use of the media empire's video and audio material, and said that it planned to seek $780 million in damages plus additional advertising losses in the lawsuit filed in a civil court in Rome. During the same month Google was ordered by a federal judge in New York to turn over a database of video viewing usage related to YouTube. Related Links:
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