Google, owners of YouTube, agreed this past week to pay royalties to French singers when their videos and other forms of streaming music appear on the company’s video portal.
According to Google, they will pay royalties to French, Belgian and Luxembourgian artists, but only when views of their materials occur within their own respective countries.
The announcement shouldn’t come as a surprise to industry analysts, since Google first announced they were meeting with SACEM, a French music royalty company back in September.
YouTube already has similar agreements in place in the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain among other countries.
At this time no official announcements have been made in terms of how much artists will be paid, however the deal is said to be retroactive from 2007 and will run through 2013.
For artists looking for a quick paycheck, Google may not pay any money out for up to a year, so you may just have to sit and wait for that first royalty check to arrive.
On the other hand, while artists may have to wait, more popular singers have reason to rejoice as they will be paid for simply posting their materials on the worlds largest social video portal.
