YouTube fees deal is boost to songwriters; WEB WANNABES: Composers will soon be paid every time any of their work is played on YouTube.

Byline: JON REES

FOR the first time next month the social networking website YouTube willhand over a fee for the music played on ten million videos on its UK site.

The money will be not be just for videos by groups such as Arctic Monkeys andKaiser Chiefs but will also be for the music played on every video created byteenagers pretending to be pop stars and every outlandish 30-second film withmusic in the background.

The deal signed by the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society and thePerforming Rights Society, known as the the Music Alliance, is a world first.

It is likely to set the template for similar deals between social networkingsites and the music industry. The non-profit making Music Alliance - whichcollects royalties for ten million songs - will be the first such organisationin the world to start paying money from this type of website to songwriters,composers and music publishers.

It has been grappling with how to protect its members' incomes in an industrybeing transformed by the growth of digital music.

The YouTube deal, involving a confidential flat fee, follows a protracteddispute with record labels, phone companies and major digital music sup-pliers, including Apple iTunes, over the amount of money to which songwriterswere entitled for a song played on a digital device rather than bought on a CD.

Digital music still accounts for a relatively small proportion of the musicmarket - about 15 per cent globally - but it is growing fast and there are morethan 1.2 million rock songs and 1.7 million R& B songs on the social networkingsite MySpace alone.

The Music Alliance eventually reached its landmark deal, known as the JointOnline Licence, to cover permanent downloads, as well as streaming, whichallows you to listen to music as it is being transferred to your computer.

It also covers webcasting - like broadcasting but using the internet - and liveconcert performances.

Steve Porter, chief executive of the Music Alliance, says: 'It took a long timeto do the deal with YouTube. Taking out a licence makes it a safe environmentfor music to be played and streamed.

' If there is an original track then it will probably be picked up by digitaltechnology and the rights owners' work is protected, and if you are playing aBritney Spears track in the background to a video you have posted then you areprotected, too.' T HE songs are identified by electronic tags embedded in themusic which can be picked up by software, a kind of fingerprinting technologywhich allows music to be digitally identified.

The Music Alliance says its systems have analysed more than 1.5 billionseparate YouTube videos to track their members' work.

The organisation also licenses the mobile phone operators who supply ringtonesand downloadable music. 'This is a fantastic time for writers, composers andpublishers, just as it is for the consumers,' says Porter. 'It is those in themiddle - the retailers and the record labels - which are suffering.' The MusicAlliance still makes money for its 49,000 members the old-fashioned way bycollecting cash for songs played on radio and television.

It also rakes in cash by the more controversial means of selling licences to7,000 pubs and clubs that play music to their customers. It even charges shopsfor playing music in the background.

Last year, the Music Alliance's revenues were [pounds sterling]558 million, of which itdistributed about [pounds sterling]500 million after running costs.

Porter adds: 'We're not doing this for the likes of Elton John to buy flowers,but for the 90 per cent of our members who earn less than [pounds sterling]5,000 a year fromtheir music.'