Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and YouTube have plenty of company from music services when it comes to concerns over licensing costs but Featured Artists Coalition members Billy Bragg and Dave Rowntree call the company’s attitude “menacing.” Quick catch-up: YouTube claims it would lose money on every play if it meets the PRS price for a license renewal, while PRS For Music says YouTube wants to pay less. Here’s a sampling of the comments in response to YouTube’s decision to pull most of its “premium” videos from its UK site after discussions with PRS hit an impasse:

—Billy Bragg and Dave Rowntree: In a Guardian column, the two connect the YouTube dispute with this week’s launch of the Featured Artists Coalition and its campaign to match fair compensation with widespread access. “By choosing to take on the PRS, a society that collects royalties for artists rather than record companies, Google is hoping to bring to heel the last remaining outpost of resistance to the idea that music on the internet should be free – the creators of that music, the artists themselves. ... Google’s dispute with the PRS makes this debate even more urgent. Their menacing attitude towards paying UK artists for content is a test case that will have ramifications around the world.”

—Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel (via BBC): “It has been a bold decision for Google but we are all working in a very competitive environment and the fees need to reflect that. It is a fundamental problem that we have been facing in that online music licensing is getting more complicated and more expensive. We pay each time one of our users listens to a song or watches a clip and, while that is more accurate because it makes sure the more popular songs get paid more, it is also very expensive. Terrestial radio pays a fixed minimum and that works out a lot cheaper.”

—We7 CEO Steve Purdham: “YouTube highlights the single common fact that the minima/fixed rates defined by the (PRS’) joint online license doe not reflect the economical world out there. Put anyone from any legal music services together in a corner and the message is consistent, we want to pay but the rates make no economical sense. Minima rates are the biggest single threat to a healthy legal digital society. The facts are simple if legal entities cannot make money then its better to give in and let the pirates have total control. We have seen this many times already.”

—Radar Music Videos founder Caroline Bottomley: “Accurate accounting by the PRS to smaller artists and labels on YouTube has always been a mess. It needs to be sorted first, before anyone starts shouting about money. If not, some young, forward-thinking company is going to come along with an elegant solution and put PRS out of business. They should be more worried than YouTube by the current situation.”

—MuZu.tv MD Mark French: “It’s not the music industry’s fault that YouTube’s business model doesn’t stack up. The model doesn’t support paying the current PRS rates, let alone the payment to artists, because they cannot command high enough advertising rates. While the industry needs to look at the minimum stream rates to make new business models viable and sustainable, it should not let YouTube hold it to ransom.”

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