Music industry wants bigger slice of Guitar Hero, Rock Band pie

The music industry is almost universally failing to do the right thing to make the most of how the distribution of music has changed over the past few years. So it’s no real surprise to now hear that the record companies are out for what they can get, and the makers of Guitar Hero and Rock Band are set to be targeted.

It’s not exactly news that the music industry is struggling to cope with the job of making money since the digital revolution started and people stopped buying CDs in favour of downloading songs and albums from the Internet, either legally or otherwise.

In fact, the music industry has wholly failed to embrace the new digital mediums and keeps dragging its heels over forging ahead with a viable solution to please the record companies, consumers, and the artists themselves. Instead, it has chosen to fight tooth and nail to hang on to a dying business model by relying on the RIAA and similar organisations to go after pirates. The saps.

But the ways in which music is now available aren’t just limited to iTunes, torrent sites, and MTV. There is also the recent phenomenon of rhythm action games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band which allow you to become the star and strum and drum your way through real songs by real artists.

This year has seen evidence that Rock Band has helped massively increase music sales of the bands featured in the game. And I have recounted a personal experience of being turned in to a fan of Megadeth and consequently spending money on albums and seeing them live purely from playing Guitar Hero. But this isn’t enough for the music industry, with one record company executive publicly stating that he wants a bigger cut of the profits from these games.

According to The Chicago Tribune, Edgar Bronfman Jr., the chairman and chief executive of Warner Music Group Corp. used a recent earnings call to grumble about the slice of the pie that his company receives for the use of content in the games.

The amount being paid to the industry, even though their games are entirely dependent on the content that we own and control, is far too small.

He then went on to express a desire for Warner Music to become a partner rather than a mere supplier in the development and distribution of these games.

If that does not become the case, as far as Warner Music is concerned, we will not license to those games.

Which sounds like a threat to me. But I just think this smacks of greed. Sure, Guitar Hero and Rock Band are both hugely successful franchises, with music-themed games estimated to hit sales of $1.5 billion this year, but why should the record companies receive any more than they currently do? Especially when the music industry does so well out of the deal by the increased sales which come as an indirect result of the games.

It seems the attitude of the music industry and the bosses at the big record companies isn’t going to change any time soon. They don’t want to embrace digital sales in any big way but will happily latch on to a new trend when they see it come along and succeed where they have failed. I say screw them.

• Guitar Hero helps music industry more than RIAA ever could
• Rock Band on PS3 and Xbox 360 helps massively increase music sales
• Guitar Hero III songs see massive digital sales increase
• Guitar maker Gibson sues MTV, EA over ‘Guitar Hero’
• Guitar Hero III sells 1.4 million copies in under a week