who owes who?

[noodles]

It's a chicken-or-egg question: should music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band pay royalties to music labels, or should it be the other way around? Well, music games wouldn't be as fun if they don't have songs from popular artists. But then, music labels wouldn't sell as many albums as they are now if it weren't for music games.

This issue is currently what execs of Activision Blizzard and Warner Music are debating over. Warner's chief Edgar Bronfman recently described royalties from game companies as "paltry." In fact, he adds that they should charge the music games more because they are "entirely dependent" on licensed music.

Activision Blizzard's CEO Robert Kotick, on the other hand, disagrees (of course). In case you didn't know, Activision is the company behind the hit Guitar Hero franchise. Kotick counters Warner by saying that music games boost sales of albums. He also adds that they are not entirely dependent on music labels, saying that:

We have lots of music to choose from, lots of artists to choose from. A 12-year-old kid has no idea who Steven Tyler is or who Aerosmith is.

In fact, Kotick went so far as to say that music companies should consider paying game companies royalties:

When you look at the impact [Guitar Hero] can have on an Aerosmith, Van Halen or Metallica, it's really significant. So much so that you sort of question whether or not, in the case of those kinds of products, you should be paying any money at all and whether it should be the reverse.

So who owes who? Personally, I think that game companies should pay music labels royalties for the right to choose which songs to add to the game, while music labels should pay game companies if they want to plug certain songs or artists. But that's just my opinion. What's your take on it?

i cant find where i took this off from, if found the article in one of my post since i want to see what other people thought about this. personally i think the labels should pay. theres songs that not many people might be familiar with and encounter it a game, maybe theyd check out the artist' other music if the one they listened to was good, etc. on the other hand good music can help advertise for the game so really it can be either way. what do you guys think?

 

[aeghrur]

I think the game companies should pay. They're taking copyrighted stuff, not necessarily with permission, adding it to their game and then take the credit for the game which so desperately depends upon the copyrighted material. Besides, who cares if the games advertise the music, did the companies sign a contract saying they'll pay for the advertisement? No, it's the game makers who advertise the music, and no one said they had to, so why should the music companies pay?

 

[Mewter]

The game companies should pay, and the artists/ bands shouldn't have to. The game companies are using the music to make money, so the creators should get a bit of that because without the music, the games would fail. Who cares if the games advertise the music? I can do that right now by uploading it into an ipod and showing it to my friends. Should the companies have to pay me? No, they shouldn't. Here's an analogy. If I was going to sell a fighting game with all of Nintendo's, Sega's, Sony's, and Microsoft's copyrighted characters and make money off of them, then I should pay them a portion of the profits, and not the other way around. It was my choice to advertise, and I have to pay the price.
If the actual creators of the song had to pay, then that would be dumb. They gave the games the songs, and without the songs, the games would be nothing. This does not work in reverse. If the games didn't advertise (well-known) games, it wouldn't matter anyways.
Plus, this is nothing like a chicken-or-the-egg debate, as the quote says.

 

[zrky]

In short, I think the developers of Guitar Hero/Rock Band should pay for the rights to using the songs before game development begins. So that in the end when people go to iTunes or something and get the songs they liked the people that wrote the songs are getting more money. Therefore the producers of Guitar Hero or Rock Band don't have to pay royalties to the owners of the song after all.