Warner Music says game makers need to pay up
"Record company CEO says licensing fees paid to the music industry by game companies are "far too small.""
"Although the unequivocal success of the Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises is certainly good for MTV Games' and Activision Blizzard's businesses, the two companies have found themselves in an arms race to satisfy their audiences' seemingly insatiable demand for new songs.
For MTV Games and Harmonix, this situation has led to an impressive library of downloadable tracks that will push Rock Band 2's total possible tracklist past 500 by the time it's released for the Xbox 360 in September. Activision Blizzard, on the other hand, has primarily opted for stand-alone tribute games to augment its flagship Guitar Hero franchise, including the recently released Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.
Regardless of how the music is distributed, it may begin to cost more for the game makers to deliver some of those songs. Warner Music Group has said that it wants to charge music-game purveyors more to license songs for their games, as reported by Reuters. "The amount being paid to the music industry, even though their games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small," said Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman to the news outlet.
Warner Music is the third-largest music company in the world. The group represents a ranging number of artists, many of whom have or will appear in editions of Harmonix's and Activision's rhythm games, including Jane's Addiction, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park, AC/DC, The Cure, and many more. Activision Blizzard parent company Vivendi SA owns in whole the world's largest music company, Universal Music Group."
:source: Source: GameSpot
Re: Warner Music says game makers need to pay up
It's all about the money :( Greedy bastards.
Re: Warner Music says game makers need to pay up
Quote:
Warner Music is the third-largest music company in the world. The group represents a ranging number of artists, many of whom have or will appear in editions of Harmonix's and Activision's rhythm games, including Jane's Addiction, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park, AC/DC, The Cure, and many more. Activision Blizzard parent company Vivendi SA owns in whole the world's largest music company, Universal Music Group."
Well you can see whats going to happen there cant you, Activision is going to stick 2 very large fingers up to Warner, and just have bands from the Universal Music Group.
imo they should let the songs go onto those games for bloody free, wonder how many have bought the games, and then went and bought the album or single. i bet its a few. And most of the songs on these games are over 10 years old anyway.
like respawn40 says, they are never happy with how much they get, if they get 20bil 1 year they want 30bil the next, and screw everyone else.
