Songs are missing from YouTube Music due to an expired “SESAC” license

Due to a licensing dispute with SESAC, numerous songs were removed from YouTube and YouTube Music in the United States. YouTube remains in “active discussions with SESAC and hopes to finalize a new deal as soon as possible.”

Over the past day, YouTube Music users in the US encountered songs marked with an exclamation mark that would not play or tap in the list view. Also, in full screen mode, the Now Playing error message appears: “Song not available – This video contains content from SESAC.” It is not available in your country.”

There are no warnings on the main YouTube and you can open these music videos, but then the above-mentioned error appears in the player.

SESAC “represents the copyrighted musical works of songwriters and publishers and their right under copyright law to publicly perform these works in businesses.” Generally, any public performance, reproduction or broadcast of music requires a license from the copyright holder.”

SESAC offers a Master License Agreement, which is considered the most convenient and cost-effective method to obtain the necessary permission for the public performance of all copyrighted music in the SESAC repertoire.

The organization promotes “top-selling partners such as Adele, REM, Jack Harlow, Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond” with a total of “over 1.5 million songs”. Affected albums will continue to appear on YouTube Music artist pages. In Adele's case, her previous albums are still released, but almost every song has disappeared. However, newer music remains available.

Officially, YouTube is telling users that “despite our best efforts, its music licensing agreement with SESAC has expired without reaching an agreement on the renewal terms.” As a result, we have blocked content on YouTube in the United States that is known to be they are associated with SESAC – in accordance with copyright law.”

YouTube shared the following statement with us:

“We have been negotiating in good faith with SESAC to extend our existing contract. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach a fair agreement before the deadline. We take copyright very seriously and therefore the content represented by SESAC is no longer available on YouTube in the United States. We are in active discussions with SESAC and hope to reach a new agreement as soon as possible.”

–YouTube speaker

Typically, you associate these content licensing disputes with YouTube TV and cable providers.

Be sure to chime in to see what songs, albums, and artists you're missing.

Update…