YouTube signs broad licensing pact with EMI from Reuters reports that Google has struck a major deal with EMI Group. EMI Group, one of the world’s leading global music companies, will allow YouTube users to not only watch EMI’s videos and music but also create user generated content around the videos.

“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. “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.”

This is big for Google and YouTube. The full release is at http://www.emigroup.com/Press/2007/press38.htm.

Related Topics: Google: Partnerships | Google: YouTube & Video

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz