Music Vet Irving Azoff Demands YouTube Remove His Clients' Songs

Music industry mogul Irving Azoff is demanding that Google's YouTube take about 20,000 songs off of its Web site. Azoff represents songwriters and producers through his company Global Music Rights, which licenses and distributes public performance royalties. His company has sent multiple letters to YouTube, demanding the songs be removed as the Web site doesn't have a license to them. That would apply to songs by Pharrell Williams, Smokey Robinson and The Eagles, all of which are clients of GMR. This, soon after YouTube negotiated for licenses for its new Music Key service that charges users a flat monthly fee for unlimited ad-free music. A YouTube spokesperson said, 'We'll keep working with both the music community and with the music fans invited to our beta phase.'