• You may have noticed that songs from popular artists are no longer accessible on YouTube.
• This as a deal with the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers and YouTube is set to expire.
• YouTube is in discussions to extend the deal, but songs from certain artists will not be viewable on the platform for now.

In recent days certain songs from popular artists have not been viewable on YouTube, depending on what part of the globe you find yourself.

The reason for this has to do with licensing, and in particular a deal that YouTube has in place with the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC), which is set to expire.

As reported by Variety, YouTube users in the United States have been greeted by the following message when trying to watch the music videos from artists like Adele, Bob Dylan, R.E.M, Burna Boy, and more – “This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country.”

An unnamed YouTube representative told the publication that, “We have held good faith negotiations with SESAC to renew our existing deal. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before its expiration.”

“We take copyright very seriously and as a result, content represented by SESAC is no longer available on YouTube in the US. We are in active conversations with SESAC and are hoping to reach a new deal as soon as possible,” they added.

For now, as Engadget points out, music videos will not be viewable, such as Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, which was published on the platform 13 years ago and has amassed more than 2.5 billion views.

Luckily South Africa does not appear to be impacted by the expiring deal, as the aforementioned Adele music video has been embedded below and is playable with no error messages at the time of writing.