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Warner Music Playing Hardball With Rock Band

Posted by Soulskill on from the all-about-the-green dept.

We recently discussed the fight brewing between the music industry and the popular music games, such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero, over the licensing fees paid for songs used within the games. Well, Warner has stepped things up and denied access to future songs without a payment increase. "Once the already-agreed-upon music runs out in the Summer however, the two companies will have to hammer out a new deal that's amenable to both. If MTV Games ends up giving Warner a larger slice of the pie, you have to think that the rest of the labels will begin asking for the same cut." The Rock Band games have seen a steady stream of DLC additions to their song libraries, the most recent being Stevie Ray Vaughan's Texas Flood album. Activision has been busily working on new Guitar Hero content as well, revealing details for Guitar Hero Greatest Hits, which is due out in June. Ben Heck (of Xbox 360 laptop fame) has just put together a breath controller for Guitar Hero World Tour's bass drum, for those unable or unwilling to use the standard pedal.

14 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Better idea for Rock Band by polle404 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    well, if they sell too many albums, they can't justify the whining & suing over copyright infringement, can they?

    much easier to just squeeze every last penny out of fringe franchises, and blame everyone else for the failure of your primary business model.

    --

    ~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
  2. What are they thinking? by yotto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "You didn't give us enough free money for providing us with free advertising for our cash cow that we didn't even put work into in the first place, so no deal. Come back when you've got even more free money than what you gave us last time."

    --
    Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
  3. To be fair... by bigmouth_strikes · · Score: 2, Insightful

    These games use the music as a very integral and essential part of the game, not as an effect or to convey a certain mood. I believe that the money the labels receive under the current agreement makes no difference between those two circumstances.

    Not that the music labels would succeed in recognizing any income apart from up-front money... I mean, they probably mark up the songs in games as "lost sales", since people wouldn't have to buy the records.

    --
    Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
  4. Yeah, could backfire on Warner by TheLink · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This might backfire on Warner, and Rock Band might really do what you hope - ask Warner to pay them for the privilege of having Warner songs as the bundled songs in the next game.

    Rock Band can definitely walk away. The Guitar Hero game already has enough mindshare on its own to do without Warner's "help".

    As long as they have an idea of what music their target market likes, they can even fill it with 100% indie songs, and the people buying the next GH game will still buy GH (and some CDs).

    Pick good stuff, add a bit of "rebel" marketing, and the teens/youths won't care that there are no big names.

    After all half of them might never have heard of the "big names" either. Some of the big name hits came out before the kids were born (for example - Strutter by Kiss was released in 1974). So it's all the same to them.

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    1. Re:Yeah, could backfire on Warner by LordKronos · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In some cases, that's true, but most of the time I don't think it is. I mean look at Rock Band 2. When it was released, they said it would come with 80+ songs, and then there would be a download code so that you could download another 20 once they got them ready. Everyone was excited. Then Harmonix released the 20 songs for download and they all turned out to be indie songs. Tons of people bitched and complained, and many won't even go and download those 20 songs even though they are free.

    2. Re:Yeah, could backfire on Warner by space_jake · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Indie songs might work for GH, but they won't for Rock Band. People like to play songs they know, especially beginners.

    3. Re:Yeah, could backfire on Warner by liquidsin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      yeah, but i imagine that the "radiohead - in rainbows" version of gh/rb would sell just fine. it's kind of awesome to see this, because i get the feeling that this could be another one of those "tipping points" as more and more artists distance themselves from major labels. obviously i can't speak for the musicians whose works have been used in these games, but i'd guess that many (most?) of them would rather have the exposure of being featured in the game then getting a few extra cents out of every copy of the game sold. and i'd also guess that if the devs don't play ball with the warner on this one, there will be some warner-signed artists pissed off that they're not eligible to put music into a game because their label is too greedy. fun times indeed...

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      do not read this line twice.
  5. Patents by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I (almost) hope patents keep the music companies from doing the obvious and releasing their own games. Of course, they'll probably use a model where you need to pay every time you play the song.

  6. Re:The Labels Should Be Grateful by kentrel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm 10 years younger than you. Do I count as the generation after yours? I buy label music all the time. I see live music. I buy and support indie musicians. I just like good music, and sometimes its indie, and sometimes its on a label. I don't care, but I'll always pay for it if I like it.

    It would be nice to catch live music any night of the week, but sometimes I like to listen to music as I read slashdot, and opening a window is not as preferrable as playing the music I just bought, and staying warm

  7. Mechanical Licensing by tehwebguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You are all missing the most important piece.

    Rock Band should immediately cease all talks with Warner and switch back to cover songs. I that case they will only need to pay a mechanical royalty of about $0.091 per unit sold per song. The only difference is that a cover band will be playing the songs.

    If they choose to do this, Warner has literally NO say in the matter. They cannot deny them the license.

    --
    -- lol pwned
    1. Re:Mechanical Licensing by FnordX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here's a simple test, use both.

      Have a cover version of the song available for, say, $.99, and the master version available for whatever the music industry wants to charge.

      Let the consumer decide.

      --
      ____________________
      Clouds in the Sky,
      Water in a bottle
  8. Recording Industry Business Plan by rlp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1) Pull out gun, fire at foot repeatedly.
    2) ????
    3) Profit

    --
    [Insert pithy quote here]
  9. Freeloaders by LtGordon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Are you blind? Since the release of Guitar Hero, all of the bands whose songs were included suddenly saw spikes in record sales. Were it not for Guitar Hero, they would have sold even more records! Stupid, free-loading videogames. The record companies have to recoup all of those lost sales somehow.

    On a serious note, though, these games pay you to include your music, and then increase your record sales. If you don't think they're paying you enough for the "privilege", move along because there are plenty of other record labels in town.

  10. there's some common early-90s stuff by Trepidity · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And it's also on there; stuff, like Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins that basically everyone who grew up in the early/mid 90s at least recognizes.

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    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10