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Originally posted by Billboard
The Warner Music Group on Saturday (Dec. 20) pulled all of its music from YouTube as negotiations over payment with Google's video site reached an impasse. Warner's move will affect its recordings as well as the songs it owns through Warner/Chappell Music.
"We are working actively to find a resolution with YouTune that would enable the return of our artists' content to the site," Warner said in a statement. "Until then, we simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide."
Warner, one of the first media companies to strike a deal with YouTube, wants to make more money from online video. Although the nature of the negotiations is unknown, a sticking point could be that YouTube has lagged in monetizing its considerable traffic at a time when competitors, like Hulu, are emerging. Warner still makes videos available to MTV, MySpace Music and other sites.
YouTube also has agreements with the other major labels, which it is now renegotiating. It is not known whether Warner's move could effect the other negotiations.
"Sometimes, if we can't reach acceptable business terms, we must part ways with successful partners," YouTube said in a statement on its blog.
This year, Warner has more than 20 percent market share of albums, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and Atlantic is the No. 1 label in the U.S.
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http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/...03924374.story
Warner's taking a huge risk by doing this, and I don't think that it is going to pay off. In this day and age, no longer is it the case where the likes of YouTube need Warner. Nowadays, YouTube and MySpace are the best ways to give your bands free advertising (since radio is not what it used to be, admittedly), and, in the process, helps to gain more fans of your product and more potential buys of their CDs and songs, which, in turn, gives the labels lots of dough. It's not rocket science, and it amazes me that we are in the year 2008, yet not one of the label pigs realizes that this is the case.
In other words, Warner needs YouTube, not the other way around, and, unless Warner comes to its senses, this will come back to bite them in the ass in unimaginable ways.
Ugh, now, I am VERY pissed! 
