Songs like Adele’s “Someone Like You,” Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” Bob Dylan’s “I Want You” and R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” have been blocked by YouTube in a legal dispute with Sesac, a performance rights organization that deals with copyright issues for performers and publishers.

Other musicians affected by the blockage include Alice in Chains, Burna Boy and Fleetwood Mac. Though some of the artists’ songs display a black screen — which reads “Video unavailable” with the subhead “This video contains content from Sesac. It is not available in your country.” — not all tracks are affected.

Sesac is among several companies that helps songwriters protect their original work and collect royalties. Just as with Universal Music Group’s dispute with TikTok earlier this year, which resulted in four million songs from artists like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and Adele being pulled from the social media platform for months,...