The Hollywood Reporter reports that Global Music Rights, a performance rights management organization, has threatened to file a $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube. Headed up by “music industry heavyweight” Irving Azoff, Global Music Rights manages the performance rights of some 20,000 songs, including works by artists such as Pharrell Williams, The Eagles, John Lennon, Smokey Robinson, Chris Cornell, and George and Ira Gershwin. Azoff alleges that YouTube lacks the performance rights to the songs managed by his organization, and is demanding that YouTube either license the songs or remove them from its site. Read the full article here.

By Eurockéennes de Belfort (NERD (5)) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Reposted from The Hollywood Reporter.