(Top photo represents”The Golden Egg”, from The goose that laid the golden egg.)

This is a two-part post.  Whenever I’m writing about Music Games, my first thought is: how can I find enough to make this interesting.  Second thought:  How can I limit the length of this, to KEEP it interesting.  First part: Is the Music game genre dying; and then the second part: the negotations to launch, and  possible future of band-specific games.

(By the way, if you’re a band looking to do your own video game, or just looking to have some tracks as a secondary income stream: contact me.  When you email me I’ll give you my private number… I’ve had to change numbers because of spammers before… that’s why the firm info is not prominent)

 (Can Rock Band Save Music Games?), From Eurogamer magazine.  Continue reading after the jump…

Somewhat dated, 2009, but still useful article about the history of music games, and how the licensing is accomplished; From Armchair Empire.

Basic, yet well-done podcast by former Megadeth bassist Dave Ellefson about how royalties work; (Yeah, I just wanted to link to something by Megadeth).  It’s a good primer, and that gives you a good start to understand how royalties work in Rock Band Network or Guitar Hero.
 
 Sun-Sentinel story about Viacom perhaps purchasing Harmonix (there’s also denials of this). Has great information about the dropping sales of games of this genre.
 
(From the Jazz Lawyer: Composer writes for Video Games) A great barnyard-to-the-frying-pan methodology of how writing a score for a video game works.  (I’m sorry, is that expression too Southern?)

 (From Kotaku): Activision chief regrets not making Guitar Hero with Harmonix)
 
Current news, from Videogamer; Harmonix continues support for Rock Band)

(Songs in Both games, why?) From MTV blog. My personal theory is that the older songs, obviously, are trying for a secondary stream of income.  The newer songs, for the most part are bands that have broken up… perhaps the record companies are more “open” to promoting those knowing the members have moved on. If any musicians or lawyers have any other theories or anecdotal information, I’d love to hear it.

Related stories specifically about Band-specific games

2008 WSJ story about Guitar Hero Aerosmith and the large payment for the rights.

2009 Billboard story about the negotiating and technical hurdles of Rock Band Beatles

 Forbes has a sardonic look at the Beatles Rock Band.  Talks about the technology, but also about the process.

 Listing of Band-titled Rock games and how they did, and what they’re like. (From Co-Optimus blog) 

In case “the suits” are looking for ideas on the next game.  Includes sales projections. (Second part from the Co-Optimus blog)

Purely for reference purposes; from the always-great Rock game resource Plastic Axe: (You can actually see an alphabetical list of songs and which game it is included within)

Final thoughts and commentary:  I think the term “too much of a good thing” might be applicable here.  And also the negotiation articles talk about how the gradual increase of demands for payments for the rights, have created a more economically difficult environment.  The crass way to put it is “not enough money to go around”.  I look forward to the excellent comments by my devoted followers and also those who were lost, and ending up here after looking for MP3 blogs. 

 Subscribe to Gamers Rights Law Feed by Email

Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cornelluniversitylibrary/4359403229/sizes/m/in/photostream/; Creative Commons, Flickr; Attribution required, Cornell University Library

The subject for today; is creativity dead or merely hiding and waiting for opportunity.  I think it’s the latter.  Let me explain why. After the jump some HEAVY reading on music notation…. so you can see the basis for my arguments!!

1. [PDF]  NOTATIONAL PRACTICES IN SELECTED PIANO WORKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by JRMcKay, 1977 (Pull up in Google viewer via http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ZsMU_aVNIEwJ:https://urresearch.rochester.edu/fileDownloadForInstitutionalItem.action%3FitemId%3D5545%26itemFileId%3D8561+1974+belgium+notation+ghent+music+university&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj38iGMLbn01qGLtpf5r7v-bQE8QySjk4qAR_GFKvNf3pBoCCr1KQNE_ql0oZM9eHHUWsTtfXYX5MkNaa8c5gq1a0pot4oQAtSwvM56ORU8dWCYpsMU0x05e_fMpryt1iigCu6K&sig=AHIEtbQNepLDAvE8VVfppm2J07_ClK5Mcw)

 Schoenberg: A new twelve-tone music notation system..A chapter excerpt from a 1924 book by Schoenberg

[For Background, here is a short blog-post about him by writer Rob Ainsley]

The Music Notation Wiki (Too deep for me, but I still don’t understand the Circle of Fifths)

 Going all Medieval on your…. Brain by Nigel Horne; a great primer on medieval music notation 

Music Modeling Language (1992?) Excellent paper by an M Casey from Dartmouth 

The above examples are just so that you can be assured that music notation is not a science, nor sacred.  Many changes have occurred to incorporate changes in mechanical instruments that were much more minor (haha) than the outlandishly large changes going on now in music innovation. 

___________________________________________________________________________________

Rock Band Network as a new medium in need of a new notation system…. Is it true?

A post about the keyboard portion of Rock Band 3 Web site: (The keyboard portion covers only 10 of the 15 available white keys…. when there’s a shift coming the screen indicates a “direction” that the music moves toward (up/higher keys; down/lower)

STILL the most comprehensive article about the technical side: From “Create Digital Music” blog

From Shacknews: USA Today article points out “more realistic music notation”…..

For those who tear apart watches to put them back together: this post from an XBOX 360 forum: http://rockband.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1711 (It covers the line by line breakdown of a track).

Just a warning note: I’m just putting this together piece by piece; please, please, if you’re developing for the game; using Reaper a great deal, Frets on Fire website, or otherwise more knowledgeable than me (you see me looking at you), then give a comment on whether my wild theories “hold water” (obligatory My Cousin Vinnie reference)

Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents

Harmonix’s Rock Band Network partners with Distribution, Promotion Sites (Gamasutra)  The article talks about cross-promotion between musician tools Tunecore, Nimbit, Reverb Nation, Indaba Music, and Topspin; while those sites are promoted to RBN users.  On a related note; Rock Band Aide noted  a RBN preview channel on Youtube.

A quite nice article about the difficulties of charting for Rock Band Network. (Music Think Tank)

A similar article decrying the arduousness of making the music ready for the game.

Another article, but hopeful, about a Vancouver band that is putting material on RBN. (Straight.com; Vancouver’s Music Source).

Regularly updated blog about RBN updates that has some impartial opinions. (Plastic Axe)

And last but not least; some very substantial information about Microsoft’s contribution to the RBN project that were given during the Game Developer’s Conference, but are now available for download.

Rock Band Network post-mortem (from Microsoft Website; contains a zip file of a Powerpoint and also audiocast)

Highly enjoyable critique of the above source material from professional gaming Website (Joystiq).  I especially enjoyed the fact that Microsoft’s programmers were much more consumed with the language and graphic images portion of the programming; but commented very little on the copyright-clearance filtering software… which I for one thought was masterfully done.

____________________________________________________________

Editorial comment:  I wondered how it was that RBN was able to filter out any copyright-infringing content?  The articles imply that it was because of direct input from developers/programmers at Microsoft; and that this might be an indirect or even direct reason the songs premiere first on Xbox live (or maybe just coding reasons).  But I’d be interested in reading any more indepth studies of how this was done. (Any of my readers feel free to enlighten me).

Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.

Here’s the background links:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5A400320091105
 
Stefani vs. Activision Reuters story.
 
http://reporter.blogs.com/files/gov.uscourts.cacd.460150.3.0.pdf
 
Activision’s response (December 2009)
 
http://www.gamerlaw.co.uk/2009/12/no-doubt-vs-activision-legal-analysis.html
 
Gamerlaw article (December 2009)

I absolutely wholeheartedly recommend the article.  It’s thought out and reminds one of the main problem of multinational corporations…. “jurisdiction, jurisdiction, jurisdiction”.  In a world with no “there”, when does state law trump federal law?  I’ll update the case notes on this as event warrant.

Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.

Flickr photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marfis75/3867466806/sizes/o/ under Creative Commons copyright.

It’s been hundreds of years since any new type of music notation has been developed.   Is the submission system of Rock Band Network (uploaded and put into the game) a new type of multimedia music notation?  Well, even if it is, it must work within the framework of the copyright system as it exists.  Here’s the nutshell version of how it works, legally and technically.

1) The legality for the user, here’s their agreement for RBN – incorporated from the main Web Site http://www.rockband.com:   

“The contents of these Sites, including all Site software, design, text, images, photographs, illustrations, audio and video material, artwork, graphic material, databases, proprietary information and all copyrightable or otherwise legally protectable elements of the Sites, including, without limitation, the selection, sequence and ‘look and feel’ and arrangement of items, and all trademarks, service marks and trade names (individually and/or collectively, “Material“), are the property of the Parent Companies, and their Affiliates, and any of their successors and assigns, and any of their respective licensors, Advertisers (as defined below), suppliers, and operational service providers and are legally protected, without limitation, under U.S. Federal and State, as well as applicable foreign laws, regulations and treaties. Unless the context clearly requires otherwise or we explicitly say so in writing, the term “Site” includes “Material” as well. The Sites are to be used solely for your noncommercial, non-exclusive, non-assignable, non-transferable and limited personal use and for no other purposes.”

Of course I go crazy if an analysis to an Agreement doesn’t reference the jurisdiction:  “This Agreement and your use of the Sites are governed by, construed and enforced in accordance with the internal substantive laws of the State of New York (notwithstanding the State’s conflict of laws provisions) applicable to contracts made, executed and wholly performed in New York, and, for the purposes of any and all legal or equitable actions, you specifically agree and submit to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the State and Federal Courts situated in the State and County of New York and agree you will not object to such jurisdiction or venue on the grounds of lack of personal jurisdiction, forum non conveniens or otherwise.”

And a little kicker at the end: . “IN ANY ACTION OR PROCEEDING COMMENCED TO ENFORCE ANY RIGHT OR OBLIGATION OF THE PARTIES UNDER THIS AGREEMENT, YOUR USE OF THE SITES OR WITH RESPECT TO THE SUBJECT MATTER HEREOF, YOU HEREBY WAIVE ANY RIGHT YOU MAY NOW HAVE OR HEREAFTER POSSESS TO A TRIAL BY JURY.”

2) A shorthand version of the payment system; from third-party vendor Authority Music: 

“This is a synch download, so if a record label owns the masters (if they paid for the recordings), you would need their permission to use the songs in Rock Band. The Download Royalty income would be split between the label and the copyright owner/publisher. Usually the label splits their cut with the artist. The specifics however depend on your deal with the record label, so you would need to check your recording contract. If you (the Artist) own your own masters – you will make more money”

The official version, from http://creators.rockband.com/royalty_schedule  “Each quarter, Microsoft (or its provider) will pay the person or entity who submits the track and consents to the Program Terms (the “Submitter”) a royalty in an amount equal to 30% of the MS Points Remittance Rate”.  So that’s a 30% royalty rate for the owner; if you split that with your record company then obviously that will be reduced (50/50 for instance would be 15% for you).

3)The technical version of how it works, from http://www.midi.org,  - and you’re not alone if it is a little intense:

“Prepare .WAV stems (submixes) of your song, isolating parts such as kick drum, snare, guitar, bass, and vocals. In addition, you’ll need to make some support files, such as a dry (unprocessed) version of the vocal to generate lip sync. Harmonix provides detailed directions on its Mix and MIDI Setup page. Using Cockos Reaper (a multitrack recording and editing program) and some free authoring plug-ins, create MIDI cue events for the notes in your stem tracks. You can get all necessary software on Harmonix’s download page. Load your audio and MIDI files into Magma (another free program from Harmonix), add background information such as song name, artist name, and price, and export a Rock Band .RBA file. Load the .RBA file into an Xbox 360 and test your song for playability. (This requires Xbox Gold and XNA Creators Club Premium memberships.) When you’re satisfied, upload the file for the Rock Band Network community to evaluate. Tweak as necessary until it’s approved for sale.

Rock Band Network has a detailed FAQ at http://creators.rockband.com/docs/FAQ#Authoring. For a shorthand version; here are the required tracks to author, from http://www.tunecore.com (Tunecore a third-party vendor, so it is not an official version but it is a condensed version of what a vendor may require to assist you) 

A total of nine Audio Stems are required for the Authoring process. Specifically, you will need an individual Audio Stem for each of these:

Good luck with all this information.  I hope this helps someone out.  Of course, with any endeavor involving money and one or more third parties, you may need to involve an attorney if enough money is involved.  That’s your personal call.

Viacom announced that MTV Games plans later this year to launch a service that will let any musical artist upload and submit their songs for possible inclusion in its “Rock Band” music video game, Billboard reported. Developers with MTV’s Harmonix studio will review submissions for playability, lyrics and copyright issues before adding tracks to a new, separate Rock Band store.

So now, you or your band’s compositions could hit a new, worldwide market that wasn’t available to you before. Does it interest you? Is this a facet that should be a part of a 360-degree deal that you and your management team work out(refer to earlier post on 360-degree deals)?

So how do the video game makers plan to get your music onto a game platform?(Fuller explanation at Joystiq.com)

“We’ve figured out how to make it so anybody who owns and controls masters and publishing can put music into ["Rock Band"] at their own pace,” Paul DeGooyer, senior vice president of electronic games and music at MTV Games, told Billboard. “We’re talking about a set of serious professional tools to allow people on the front line of writing and recording songs to completely control their destiny with respect to interactive products and then giving them direct access to the download store.”

But I’ve just got a master recording, and the sheet music written out. What else is necessary?

The technical details are “when someone submits music, there’s two different options. They can submit their music to “a community of Harmonix-trained freelance game developers” who will check the song for any inappropriateness or copyright infringement and then implement the music into the game, or “hire trained developers or school their existing employees to do the work in-house.” Which means that the acts can control the note charts on their song.” (From news.vgchartz.com article)

So what’s in it for me, and the band?

Game Informer writes that musicians whose songs are approved will be able to set their own prices. The tracks will probably cost between 50 cents and three dollars, and the creators will receive a 30 percent cut.

Is anyone really buying these songs?

Rock Band currently has a catalog of roughly 600 songs between the first and second games, DLC and AC/DC track pack. But MTV wants more. A lot more. A Billboard report (via GameDaily) discussing the impact of music games on the video game industry has MTV suggesting that they would like to make 5000 songs available for the Rock Band series. By the end of year. (Via 1up.com)
Update: Now at a 1000 songs.

Does it compare with digital downloads in mainstream formats?
In North America, more than 21 million copies of the various instalments of Guitar Hero have been sold, according to NPD Group, while consumers have snatched up 4.5 million copies of the first Rock Band. Together, the two franchises have generated more than $2-billion (U.S.) in sales, said Michael Pachter, a financial analyst who tracks the video game industry for Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles. (Source: Globe and Mail, March 2009)

So how do I get my content to the developers? (For technical details consult 1UP article here. )

When Activision… first started approaching labels, he typically dealt with a company’s film and TV licensing division. These days, most labels have a dedicated staff working on video game licensing.

In other words, get your entertainment attorney or your personal manager to ask the right questions. There might be another alternative route to get your music heard.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Related links and music video-games news “below the fold”

Beatles Rock Band to get “huge” for the holiday: an interview on Industry Gamers Website.

Rock Band Bar Night: Signup and rules.

Rock Band Network to see FULL LAUNCH in 2010

Here’s a great article on the developers of Rock Band.

And of course; some dissent that says Music Video games destroy the Musicians in us:

Do guitar games discredit real guitarists?

Jimmy Page and Jack White criticize Guitar Hero.

Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.