Songs like Adele‘s “Someone Like You,” Green Day‘s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” Bob Dylan‘s “I Want You” and R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” have been blocked by YouTube in a legal dispute with SESAC, a performance rights organization that deals with copyright issues for performers and publishers.
Other musicians affected by the blockage include Alice in Chains, Burna Boy and Fleetwood Mac. Though some of the artists’ songs display a black screen — which reads “Video unavailable” with the subhead “This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country.” — not all tracks are affected.
SESAC is among several companies that helps songwriters protect their original work and collect royalties. Just as with Universal Music Group’s dispute with TikTok earlier this year, which resulted in four million songs from artists like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and Adele being pulled from the social media platform for months, SESAC and YouTube have not reached a deal agreement on renewal terms. Thus, SESAC is within its purview to block public performances of music, from streaming to radio play, though this is often hard to enforce.
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Numerous Reddit threads popped up as users shared their frustration over being unable to stream their favorite tunes, with the issue seemingly beginning earlier today. While YouTube has not yet released a statement on the matter, its X account replied to several consumers, writing, “we hear you. our music license agreement with SESAC has expired without an agreement on renewal conditions despite our best efforts. for this reason, we have blocked content on YouTube in the US known to be associated with SESAC – as in line with copyright law.”
The account added in a later reply, “we understand this is a difficult situation and our teams continue to work on reaching a renewal agreement.” In a separate comment, Team YouTube wrote it is “continuing” discussions with SESAC, though it has “no exact dates for future updates yet.”
Blocks like this are common when copyright companies and distributing platforms cannot agree on a licensing deal. The duration of such legal disputes can last anywhere from several days to months at a time, such as when the behemoth Warner Music Group pulled music videos off of YouTube for the better part of a year from 2008-09.
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