London - After failing to agree on terms to renew a licensing agreement with the Performing Rights Society for Music (PRS) in the U.K., Google’s (NASD:  GOOG) YouTube has blocked thousands of music videos from its U.K. site, the company said in a blog post. "PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our licence than before. The costs are simply prohibitive for us — under PRS’s proposed terms we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback," wrote Patrick Walker, YouTube’s director of video partnerships for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

For its part, PRS for Music said in a statement that it is "outraged on behalf of consumers and songwriters that Google has chosen to close down access to music videos on YouTube in the UK," adding that Google "wish[es] to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing."

YouTube’s Walker notes that the company’s issue is not with the major record labels themselves, but rather with the PRS collection society.

YouTube is still working with PRS for Music "in an effort to reach mutually acceptable terms for a new license, but until we do so we will be blocking premium music videos in the U.K. that have been supplied or claimed by record labels," Walker wrote.

Related Links:

http://www.youtube.com/blog?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&entry=UaUSnLJ1wWE

http://snipurl.com/dh1ow (PRS statement)

http://snipurl.com/dh0z9 (Billboard)