Warner Music and MTV in licensing 'stalemate'

I wish one of the big news sites would make a list of the top artists who are owned by which studios and which studios MTV/activision have delt with in the past. *hint hint* joystiq. *nudge nudge*

Not quite what you wanted but I did get a list of artists per label from Wikipedia to confirm my comment above.

They got those on because the agreement ends this summer, if I'm reading the article right. That means artists like AC/DC came out for RB when the agreement was (and still is at the moment) valid. Time for HMX to get to work pumping out all the WMG tracks they can before the agreement expires.

The death throes of a dying industry.

Their loss, I wouldn't give them a cent unless it's through rock band.

If that does happen, it's blatantly illegal.

is it illegal??? I mean I know that it often happens under the table with certain DJ's but I didnt know it was illegal

Yup. It's called Payola. You aren't allowed to broadcast on TV or radio anything if you've been paid to do so, unless you run a disclaimer saying you've been paid to do so.
Similarly, Plugola is when you or the station broadcasts something that is of a personal financial interest, but fail to disclose that over the air.

I'm sure it happens here and there, but for the most part, the big music labels don't do it, since they can get HUGE fines leveled against them for doing so.

Actually both MTV and Actiblizzard could make a pretty good stand for charging for the music to be included in their games, seeing as the content needs to be modified to be useful. You can't just create an mp3 of the song and play it on Rockband/GH, you need the developers to add the notes. And yes, while I'm sure that DLC creation is probably just one giant macro by now, it's still an extra effort. Thing is, I'm sure that both Microsoft and Sony get a cut of the sale proceeds as well as for just hosting the data on their servers.

If Warner Bros. executives got their heads out of their you know whats, what they should do is hand these songs over to both companies with money to cover the development process, and put it up on both networks as "non-profit" (enough to cover the fees, but no profit to the companies). Warner Brothers artists get more exposure which may lead to fans actually buying the songs on MP3 or CD. Rockband/GH gets great exposure because their song catalogs are huge. Win/Win.

@Storm -- I'm already proof that your idea works. I've bought several songs off of iTunes solely because I liked playing them in Rock Band, several songs I'd never heard before Rock Band. You'd think the executives would be able to make the correlation.

I think it works more the other way around. I mean they MADE an Areosmith game BECAUSE people requested it. so why SHOULDNT the artist get paid for it??

I would cheer for that, but I've already made myself look like an asshole once this week.

Don't be a pussy about it! It's only Tuesday! You should make it a goal to be an asshole every day this week!

Ha ha you like nu-metal with a sprinkle of suburbanized, privileged rap!

Some good LP in there already, at least.

How could you root for Viacom??? I am sorry but Viacom did still sue youtube/google and like took all of their music off the site. So at this point i hate all record companies.

Okay, I'm not a fan of this as much as the next guy...but that whole reducto ad nazium is a bit excessive.

It was tongue in cheek :)

They do get a small percent, they want a bigger percent.

Yeah, but they need the other revenue streams that are revitalized by having a song in the game. Studies show that purchases of said song go through the roof as soon as it ends up in a rhythm game.

And with the music industry in the state that it's in you'd think that would be enough incentive for a record company; revenue from the DLC (however small a percentage they may think it is) coupled with the increased sales from the song(s) in the DLC through iTunes et al.

Oh well...