UMG Pulls MTV Videos

Universal Music Group has reportedly pulled its music videos from MTV’s websites because the two companies aren’t seeing eye-to-eye in negotiations for a new licensing agreement.

The talks between MTV Networks and Vevo, the video service jointly owned by UMG, Sony Music and Google, are reportedly at an impasse over ad revenue, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“MTVN has been unwilling to negotiate a fair syndication deal with Vevo to carry our artists’ videos and consequently our videos will not be shown on their online properties,” UMG told the WSJ in a statement. “We believe that using Vevo as our online music video syndication platform is the best way to maximize revenue for our artists, our songwriters and ourselves.”

However, MTV’s statement claims Vevo is the one being unreasonable.

“We continue to seek out new and innovative ways to connect artists with their fans that are mutually beneficial to everyone. However, during our recent discussions with Vevo, we were unable to reach a fair and equitable agreement for rights to stream UMG artists’ music video content.”

Videos of UMG artists such as Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas and Justin Bieber won’t be shown on MTV websites for now but the dispute reportedly doesn’t affect MTV’s cable channels, the paper said.