Over the weekend, thousands of songs and music videos by artists like Adele, Kendrick Lamar, Nirvana, Bob Dylan, Green Day, Mariah Carey and hundreds more were removed from YouTube. The drastic and surprising move comes after YouTube failed to come to terms on a new agreement with the publishing rights organization SESAC. “We have held good faith negotiations with SESAC to renew our existing deal. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before its expiration,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday. “We take copyright very seriously and as a result, content represented by SESAC is no longer available on YouTube in the US. We are in active conversations with SESAC and are hoping to reach a new deal as soon as possible.” SESAC, which claims that it “currently licenses the public performance of more than 1.5 million songs on behalf of its 15,000+ affiliated songwriters, composers, and music publishers,” has not publicly commented on their dispute with YouTube. (Rolling Stone)