EMI Music, Google and YouTube, have announced an agreement which will give YouTube users access to authorized videos and recordings from EMI Music artists, including those featured in user generated content.

“With this deal, all four of the world’s major music companies are now official YouTube partners,” said Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-founder of YouTube, in the press release. “EMI is a proven leader in the emerging digital music landscape and one of the world’s largest and most respected music companies. We’re excited to add EMI Music’s stellar roster of artists’ content to our site and make it available to our community.”

Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group, said in the press release: “Working with YouTube under this agreement meets EMI’s objectives to offer consumers the best possible entertainment experiences, to create new ways to connect our artists to fans and to enter into innovative business models that will generate revenues for our business and our creators. Through this agreement EMI Music and its artists will be fairly compensated for their work.”

YouTube users will now be able to enjoy music videos from their favorite EMI Music artists including David Bowie, Coldplay, The Decemberists, Fat Boy Slim, Gorillaz, Lily Allen, Norah Jones and YouTube Video Award winners, OK Go and Sick Puppies. Moreover, as part of this agreement, EMI will make authorized video content available to YouTube for the first time, helping artists to reach and interact with a new audience while enhancing the entertainment experience on YouTube.

EMI Music has agreed to work with YouTube and Google to develop business models in which the YouTube community will be able to access user generated content featuring EMI-owned and copyrighted audio and video works. EMI Music will use YouTube’s industry-leading content management tools which feature a content identification and reporting system that will help EMI track and monetize its content and compensate its artists. YouTube’s content management tools also give EMI Music the ability to request the removal of EMI’s copyrighted content from YouTube.

Source: http://www.emigroup.com/Press/2007/press38.htm

Nate Anderson comments for Ars Technica, “It’s been a big week for both [EMI and YouTube], due to the influence of a third company not mentioned in the announcement: Apple. EMI’s DRM-free music at last appeared on the iTunes Store this week, and Apple announced that it was working to bring YouTube videos to the AppleTV in short order. This AppleTV action is so hot that even Viacom wants in on it.”

Anderson writes, “Video providers (television producers and movie studios) are willing to work with Apple, but many have shown reticence to sign on with YouTube. Viacom is famously suing YouTube for $1 billion, and NBC and News Corp. are hoping to beat the upstart at its own game. For music labels, though, the tide has turned; providing music videos and access to licensed music for user-generated content appears to be the new ‘normal.’”

Full article here.