If you’ve recently tried playing songs by artists like Adele, Bob Dylan, Green Day, or Burna Boy on YouTube, you might have come across a frustrating message: “This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country.” This isn’t just a random glitch or a temporary outage but a result of a legal dispute between YouTube and SESAC, a performing rights organisation (PRO), as per a report by The Variety. As of now, many popular songs are unavailable to US users, and this situation has stirred conversations among fans, the music industry, and the involved parties.The root of the issue lies in the failure of negotiations between YouTube and SESAC. YouTube has stated that they had been in talks with SESAC to renew their existing licencing agreement. However, despite these negotiations, the two parties couldn’t agree on new terms before the current deal expired. As a result, YouTube had to block content represented by SESAC, in compliance with copyright law. This explains why many songs by artists like Adele, Bob Dylan, Green Day, and even some performed by Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj are unavailable on the platform in the US.
