In an indication that a lot of YouTube videos are blacked-out in Germany, Berlin-based OpenDataCity (ODC) revealed an interactive web application last month to show that nearly 61.5 percent of the top videos on Google-owned YouTube - the world's most popular video-sharing site - are apparently experiencing a blackout in the country.

The reason why such a big number of YouTube videos are blacked-out in Germany is that German music rights management group GEMA has not granted the respective music publishing rights. In fact, an unprecedented legal copyright standoff has been persisting between YouTube and GEMA ever since 2009, after the expiry of an agreement between the two parties.

According to a report in Germany paper Die Süddeutsche Zeitung, GEMA representative Ursula Goebel has termed the blocking of YouTube videos in the country as a "campaign by YouTube to turn the public against GEMA amidst negotiations."

However, YouTube, on its part, has been alleging that GEMA has been short-changing its members neither capitalizing on the revenue nor on the potential publicity stream that can be offered by the video sharing site.

Meanwhile, noting that YouTube's video-blackout move in Germany conveys a lot about its parent company Google, ODC co-founder Lorenz Matzat said: "It's interesting to see what Google does when publishers say they want money for the material Google republishes. It says there just won't be any Google News from that source, for instance."