No one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the music business, an adage confirmed again by Warner Music’s decision to pull its videos from YouTube because talks over licensing fees have broken down.

This is a pet peeve of mine, as I frequently try to post videos on this blog only to see the maddening caption, “Embedding disabled by request.”

The request is made, of course, by the record company involved.

What possible good could that do? The videos I post don’t earn me any revenue (but so what if they did) and they might well make the record company some money. After all, if you see a video on this blog by a band you didn’t know but turn out to like, you might go out and buy music from that band.

And if you don’t, you won’t.

You certainly wouldn’t go searching YouTube for a band you’ve never heard or heard of.

So allowing bloggers like me to post videos is basically allowing people to publish advertisements for free.

But that argument, of course, makes too much sense. And so the music biz wants to charge YouTube—and bloggers, presumably—for posting videos.

If anything, this compensation arrangement should work the other way: YouTube should charge Warner Music for the right to post its videos online.

But….

In a statement, Warner Music said it “simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide.”

Warner thus becomes the Plaxico Burress of the music industry, shooting itself in the foot leg.

If I ran YouTube, I would start negotiating directly with artists and their managers, offering them separate deals, and I would crush Warner Music like a bug.

Or, better yet, I would set up a free section of the site, and a section where users had to pay the record company licensing fee, and watch as the free section blossomed and the paid section withered and died. Just as Warner Music itself would—and will, if it keeps up this boneheaded scheme.