Fair play to PRS for launching its songwriters site at an apt time.

Editorial Paul Williams

YOU HAVE TO ADMIRE YOUTUBE'S hugely positive public persona. It has ensured that, despite it being owned by a multi-billion-dollar corporate giant, in its PR skirmish with PRS for Music it has been the music people that have come across as "the bad guys".

So the announcement last week of PRS for Music launching the Fair Play For Creators website, which aims to give songwriters a new voice in terms of how their music is used by YouTube and other online destinations, could not have come soon enough.

Up until now in this dispute it has been the Google-owned YouTube that has publicly led the debate, from announcing without consultation that it was pulling premium music content, to the aftermath, where the music industry has yet again been portrayed in many places as being "greedy" and "trying to make another quick buck".

From comments by Sun readers to a survey of The Guardian's audience, which had a majority in favour of YouTube not having to pay songwriters for using their music, the message is clear: PRS for Music and the songwriters have a battle on their hands to explain their case to the public, and this new website is a positive start in that direction.

The website's aim of switching the focus back on to the people who really matter - the individual songwriters - should humanise the discussions and remind everyone, not least music fans, that what we are talking about is the livelihoods of creators, most of whom are not exactly wealthy.

It is just a pity that yet again someone else - in this case Google - has been allowed to set the public agenda on an industry-related issue, with the ...