Youtube Blocks Music Videos In Germany

Youtube have blocked music video content in Germany after failing to reach an agreement with the country's performance rights organization GEMA.

The move directly echoes Youtube's decision on March 10 to pull video content for UK users after licensing deal talks with PRS went into meltdown.

The German deal between GEMA (Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs) expired last week and since then both sides have agreed on royalty rates.

Patrick Walker, the director of video partnerships at Youtube, told German paper Der Spiegel that GEMA's rates were a whopping 50 times higher than those proposed by the PRS in the UK.

He said of the alleged charges: "It's unprecedented in the history of music video streaming."

GEMA have cited a lack of 'transparency' as the reason behind the failed talks.