From what I've read musicians tend to get most of their income from concerts. I could be mistaken here.

Thats not the point. In fact, i doubt that Warner gives the revenues from licensing music to games like Rock Star to the artists. I assume, they just keep this money, as they have done it in the past with the revenues from digital downloads.

That's most likely the case. From what I've read, artists generally only get a cut from traditional CD sales. That's just how the contracts have been written. Smarter artists that have enough clout to be able to negotiate might be able to get a cut of online and other sources of profit, but they are probably few and far between.

Well I did follow through a bit with thinking about record labels and artists, but I still believe the previous comment that the news post refers to, the one about content they own and control, is relevant. It still annoys me that record labels are so blind to both their artist's well being and the market they occupy.

Interesting points, and I agree that the artists of the songs included with games that use them should be paid some sort of royalty.

Thats not the point. In fact, i doubt that Warner gives the revenues from licensing music to games like Rock Star to the artists. I assume, they just keep this money, as they have done it in the past with the revenues from digital downloads.

... is an idiot! Which is no suprise, because he is CEO of Warner Music, one of the fout major lables, who are doing everything they can ...

- to NOT understand the changes, internet and P2P has brought to the media business
- to piss off their once very content customer base
- to piss of EVERY business partner, who gives them a chance to earn additional money

Interesting points, and I agree that the artists of the songs included with games that use them should be paid some sort of royalty. I'm not sure how much would be appropriate though, given that the comments seem to indicate that games would be based on the music, rather than the music being part of the game (or an extra feature, whatever).

I think what music publishing companies have to realise is that video games are potentially a vastly lucrative market for their music. All sorts of artists have their music in games that aren't anything like Guitar Hero or Rock Band - Quake and Descent are two that immediately spring to mind (going back a bit there, but still) - and if they can find a way to remain in the market without annoying publishers or developers, it's money in the bank.

That said, there are a lot of independent game music artists that do equally good work - Sonic Mayhem for example - that license their work themselves. Combined with the usually acceptable music created by the development teams themselves, I think record labels need to be lenient in music contracts for games that aren't like GH or RB. It quite literally is free money for them, along with publicity for future works by the same artist.

edit: corrections etc.

This comment was edited on Aug 15, 09:47.