They should be glad to get free exposure to a captive audience... as Guitar Hero is one of the best ways to promote a band ever created.

Music games have re-popularized many older bands that young people may not have been exposed to. My 11 year old nephew asking for a Who cd for his birthday is proof of that.
I understand the industry's arguement, the only problem is that more money for the labels does not mean more money for the artists who actually created the content.

The Music industry has proved itself incapable of running its own business.

As soon as they see a new market, be it cds, internet, or video games, they try to rape it for all it's worth. must be all the coke. :)

unfortunately, this tends not to work in the end, as both the consumer and the artist get ripped off.

They should be happy someone has thrown them a lifeline. This is a brand new market that didn't exist a few years ago, created by the inventive video games industry. They didn't discover this market.

However, they will always behave like spoiled children when their product is concerned. Case in point is believing every illegal download is a sale lost.

And don't get me started on commercial radio!

Man, there are so many indie bands dying to be on Guitar Hero and Rock Band that they should release an expansion pack purely about unknown bands. Who needs big names? You're selling a video game.

"... their games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small,"

Music games do not need blockbuster artists for their games to be successful. The ingredients for a successful game are already there. These games just provide a helpful marketing tool for big name bands that have yet to hit home with some listeners. Thousands upon thousands of GH players probably have never heard of songs from Motley Crue or Poison but now are huge fans. The music industry is getting their dues and the obvious evidence is album sales. Anyways, original music could easily replace big name groups and I'm sure we'll get a glimpse of the possibilities with GH4's track creator.

It's been shown on record multiple times that bands have reported drastically increased sales over retail channels such as iTunes thanks solely to their song being showcased in Guitar Hero or Rock Band.

The record industry is barely treading water these days, this is just another attempt at keeping from going under.

I play in a band called Bang Camaro. We just kicked off Lollapalooza, and we can thank approximately 99% of our success to being included in GH2 and Rock Band. (Thanks Harmonix!) The music industry needs to learn that these games now have the power to launch relatively unknown bands and leverage them accordingly. I agree that this is just another attempt at keeping record labels from going under. Don't even get me started on 360 deals!

Everyone already made great points. They're being penny wise, pound foolish.

And so it begins... With Warner - with it's long, rich history of making incredibly stupid business decisions, leading the charge.
(Joke- Warner tried to bury AOL out in the desert, but they couldn't find room - the ET cartridges haven't decomposed yet.)

I'm in agreement with every one of the above posters. Warner should thank their lucky stars the losses on the music biz side won't be even larger due to the success of these games. The games sold millions before most of the "major" artists were included! Still no Zeppelin. Still no Beatles. Etc. Etc.

PLEASE, Warner - keep pounding the table with this so Harmonix and Activision will drop your artists from their games. Then the shareholders can sue the leadership for incompetence. Oops... there goes your cushy, overpaid gig!
(I don't have any financial positions in Warner).

I've bought about 20 tracks on iTunes just because of GH and RB. Even Flyleaf for god's sake!

Oh, Warner is getting paid for it? In my head they should be paying for the chance to revitalise old bands such as Metallica in the eyes of a whole new generation that couldn't care less about the music industry from the last century and its ancient distribution channels (such as CD).

It should be no surprise that most of the responses on this site are pro-game-/anti-music- industry. Warner does have a point; they do own the rights to the songs, but it's really their own fault if they aren't charging "enough" for their use. Any industry is going to be out for as much income as possible, and I'd like to believe that Warner isn't actually whining, the way it comes across in this article. My guess is that they know these games serve as advertising, and they're testing the waters of public opinion (couching it, of course, as a rights issue and not as a money squeeze). After all, if they really wanted to charge more they simply would; they wouldn't announce it to the world first.

If Warner Bros. charges too much, Activision will just use other artists. It's simple economics.