The musicians Billy Bragg and Robin Gibb have joined forces with the record producer Pete Waterman, accusing Google of devaluing songwriters amid a row over royalties.

In the dispute, music videos have been taken down from YouTube UK because its owner, Google, says that it cannot afford to pay a fee every time a song is streamed from the video website. In a letter to The Times, the three men say that Google “ascribes little value to music — in spite of a huge increase in music usage” — because of its refusal to pay, and called on YouTube to reinstate music videos “and pay a fair price for it”.

Bragg accused Google of “using its monopoly in the marketplace to dictate terms” to songwriters. The letter has the support of more than 500 songwriters and musicians, many of whom have added their names to a website called Fair Play for Creators. Mark Kelly, a songwriter for the band Marillion, said that he had received 0.6p in royalties in the past three months from YouTube, although band videos had been played ten million times.

Google said it could not reach a deal on the terms in which it would pay 0.22p every time a song was played. A spokesman said that YouTube “cannot be expected to engage in a business in which it loses money every time a music video is played”.

Britons streamed 300 million professionally produced videos in the last three months of last year. Amateur videos take the total to three billion — bringing YouTube's potential bill to £6.6 million for one quarter in Britain alone.

Google's critics say that YouTube could pay a proportion of its advertising revenues to musicians. However, Google refuses to reveal how much advertising revenue YouTube generates to the Performing Rights Society, which collects songwriter royalties.

Explore Music

• CD Reviews

• Live Reviews

• Classical

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010