Warner Music Playing Hardball With Rock Band

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.

Better idea for Rock Band

[shawb]

I hope they sit down with the Warner execs and say: Have a look at album sales after we release a track [usatoday.com]. If you want us to use your songs, pay up. If not, we can always go elsewhere.

The Labels Should Be Grateful

[Phoenix666]

Anyone wants to talk to them at all, or re-use again, for the thousandth time, their same old tired, tired content. I haven't bought any music since Napster. My family went pure indie after that and we couldn't be happier. I don't know anyone who still buys music either. Indeed to do so would be horribly gauche when you can always catch amazing music performed live any given night of the week in any of two-score bars/venues in Brooklyn. Guitar Hero gives the labels one last, golden chance to bridge that void and reach the generations that have come after mine (I'm 36). So, yes, the labels ought to be kissing GH's butt, not pulling stunts like this one. Antagonizing GH is a sure path to complete and final irrelevance.

Exactly

[d-r0ck]

Don't negotiate with terrorists. If they want to pay hardball then let them play by themselves. Music industry is always crying how they are losing money, here is a new revenue stream which is really gravy for them as they have very little costs. Take it or leave it, there are plenty of fish in the sea.

Re:Mechanical Licensing

[greg1104]

The alternate version of "Working Man" was used in order to generate some cross PR for Rush and Rock Band fans. They followed putting it into the game with releasing it as a new single track via iTunes; see http://www.rush.com/low/news.php?year=2008 [rush.com] for details. That was pure marketing, they could have used the original one had they wanted to, but knew that picking the alternate take would add some buzz via Rush fans who want copies of everything.

Jimmy Buffet did something similar by re-recording some of his old songs for exclusive Rock Band versions. Forces all the Parrotheads to get Rock Band if they want to hear them.