At this rate, YouTube will have precious little music left. After blocking all music to UK users while demanding lower PRS fees, the video site is now yanking tunes in Germany, after the expiration of its contract with local royalty collector GEMA on Thursday.
The difference? GEMA’s rates are 50 times more than even PRS’, GooTube EMEA head Patrick Walker told Der Spiegel: “It’s unprecedented in the history of music video streaming.” While PRS charges £0.0022 per track, GEMA’s standard on-demand music rate is