For all of you expecting a slow week at work, and looking forward to killing some time by watching your favorite music videos on YouTube, we have some bad news for you. Warner Music Group ordered YouTube on Saturday to remove all music videos by its artists. So, in other words, you’re not going to find the Red Hot Chili Peppers or T.I. on YouTube today — or at least you shouldn’t.

Essentially, the disagreement boils down to Warner seeking a bigger share of the huge revenue potential of YouTube’s massive visitor traffic. “We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide,” Warner said in a statement.

But all is not lost, according to the Wall Street Journal, which writes: “In the wake of Warner’s move, people close to the other major labels said they didn’t anticipate taking down their content in the immediate future. These people say they are discussing new, more lucrative ways to do business with YouTube. The four music companies don’t necessarily have the same terms with YouTube, which could explain the discrepancy in their stances.”

Besides, you can still watch many Warner Music videos on MySpace Music.

But this goes well beyond how we’re going to spend the next few days at the office. It’s part of the broad, ongoing battle between content providers and content distributers. That’s why, even if you don’t care about My Chemical Romance or any other Warner bands, you should be watching how this plays out.

Keep an eye on:

• Jim Carrey’s new comedy “Yes Man” got the nod from moviegoers across North America, but brutal weather in key markets combined with holiday shopping distractions to hit overall ticket sales (Reuters)
• General Motors Corp. may finally be getting its loan from the Federal government, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to resume its former marketing-spending levels (AdAge) 
•  Arthur Spiegelman, one of Reuters’ finest writers and longest-serving correspondents, died at home in Los Angeles on Saturday. He was 68 (Reuters)

(Reuters photo: Vocalist Gerard Way of the rock band My Chemical Romance )

How tough are things at General Motors?

Not only has the car maker scaled back on its advertising budget, but now it wants the ad agencies it works with to cut their fees by as much as 20 percent this year and next, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

It’s no surprise GM has pulled back on some marketing — just look at any figures over the past year. It’s not like anybody else in Detroit is going gangbusters with their spending either — Ford and Chrysler have also cut their spend, data from TNS shows.

But the WSJ article underscores the risks to the advertising and media industry posed by the meltdown in Detroit. Car makers, after all, are huge clients for advertising agencies. The money they spend also fuels revenue for the media companies that carry the advertisements, from television to print and beyond.

Here’s what the article says about the GM move:

“The owner of Cadillac and Chevrolet works with dozens of agencies around the country, including Publicis Groupe’s Leo Burnett and Interpublic Group’s McCann Erickson and Campbell-Ewald.

Several ad executives familiar with GM say the cuts could translate into more than $20 million in total savings for General Motors, but likely will mean layoffs for the agencies involved.”

If GM gets its way, you can bet others will be clamoring to follow suit.

Keep an eye on: 

• Warner Music Group posted a smaller quarterly loss as improved sales in Europe softened the effects of the slowdown in the global music industry (Reuters)
• Google has sold Performics, the search agency it got in the acquisition of DoubleClick, to Publicis Groupe (AdAge)
• A flurry of films arriving in North American theaters between now and September are opening on a Wednesday — long considered a moviegoing dead zone — as studios seek to build early buzz for movies ahead of the traditional Friday dash to the multiplex (Reuters)
• LA Times, which has struggled of late, is posting some solid traffic gains on its Reader’s Representative Journal blog (paidContent.org)

(Photo: Reuters)

Madison Square Garden, the storied New York City sports and entertainment venue owned by the Dolan family’s Cablevision Systems Corp, is getting further into the music business with a deal to take a minority stake in artist management company Front Line, it said on Wednesday.

Front Line’s backers seem to be the who’s who of New York media moguldom with stakeholders like Barry Diller’s IAC Interactive and Edgar Bronfman Jr’s Warner Music Group.

Front Line, led by Irving Azoff, is described as the world’s largest personal music management firm with artist clients including the Eagles, Jimmy Buffett, Neil Diamond and Christina Aguilera.

Perhaps it was too hard to find a manager for Cablevision CEO Jim Dolan’s band JD & The Straight Shot without buying one.

(Photo: Reuters)

Every so often, poetry blossoms through the doldrums of otherwise stuffy corporate financial conference calls, where imagery and alliteration take a back seat to requests to “drill down” into earnings data.

Asked if their plan to stop paying a dividend masks some ominous inability to pay its debts, Warner Music Group Edgar Bronfman Jr. summoned his inner storyteller to assuage investors fears…

“Given the uncertain economic environment — as we look at what levers do we want to pull as we sail our ship, that no matter what currents run under the water or winds blow above the water, we are going to be nowhere near the shoals or the rocks we don’t anticipate.”

Nice, eh? Soothing even.

Okay, Shakespeare, it aint. But hey, don’t forget, Bronfman has written music performed by the likes of Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand and Dionne Warwick. He may not be able to get Madonna back on his roster, but a co-written hit tune?

Not impossible…

(Photo: Reuters file)

MySpace has sent out a ‘breaking news’ media advisory for a news conference featuring CEO Chris de Wolfe (left) at 11am ET, which we presume is about the launch of MySpace Music as Reuters reported yesterday to be coming in days.

Silicon Alley Insider reported later yesterday that Universal Music Group had settled with MySpace for $100 million, a figure we also confirmed from our source. The November 2006 lawsuit was the main sticking point for getting MySpace Music off to a flying start. With a third of the recorded music market under its thumb, Universal’s participation was seen as critical to the new service’s success.

MySpace’s parent News Corp. will own the majority stake of MySpace Music while Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group will each have a minority stake proportional to their market size, say our sources. The music companies also have an eye on a possible spin-off of the music company in the future, said one source.

No one knows if EMI, the smallest of the big four, will be on board in the future. This week the company appointed former Google executive Doug Merrill as president of digital.

Keep any eye on:

• Jay-Z does $150 million deal with Live Nation - NY Times, WSJ and Silicon Alley Insider
• The iPhone shortage - NY Times, Reuters
• Garmin to cut costs in 2008 - Reuters