What will the music industry think of Lips?
Today at E3 I got to demo Microsoft and iNiS' upcoming karaoke game "Lips" and got some more details on the innovative new feature that will let players import songs from their iPod (or Zune, as Microsoft keeps reminding us) into the game.
It turns out the game can handle any DRM-free music file, which is really impressive. iNiS' Chief Creative Officer Keiichi Yano also promised there will be a cool solution to the question of showing lyrics to the song on screen, though he didn't provide details. (I would imagine it's a deal with Gracenote or another online music database)
Being a business reporter as well as a videogame critic, my thoughts immediately went to the financial end of this -- if the game can import any MP3, that means Microsoft doesn't have to have a licensing arrangement with the song's label or publisher. Meaning Microsoft doesn't have to pay the people who made the music. Yano confirmed this for me.
Activision and MTV certainly pay labels and publishers for the songs in "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band," as does for "Singstar." I would also imagine that Microsoft is paying the rights holders for all songs included on the "Lips" disc, as well as any downloadable content.
Microsoft has some good lawyers, so I'm sure they're comfortable with the idea that they can legally use any song that users already own (regardless of where they got it) in the game. But it's not clear to me that the music industry would be cool with this arrangement. On the contrary, in fact, labels are increasingly looking to videogame as a source of revenue growth. They expect to make money when their songs are used in games.
And on the face of it, it doesn't seem like there's a reason why the source of the music (my iPod vs the game disc) should effect who gets paid. Half the people who bought "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" may already own lots of Aerosmith CDs, but that doesn't mean Activision got out of paying to use the songs. Making the song into a game is arguably a transformative use for commercial gain.
I'm not saying I think Microsoft should have to pay. But based on everything I know about the music industry, I would think they won't be pleased that "Lips" owners can use their songs in the game for free. This is definitely something I'll be looking into more.
Chris Morris reports on the business and culture of video games and offers analysis of recent events and industry trends.
Subscribe to this blog's feed
If this is a problem then the companies would have the same problem when I´m playing custom soundtracks in on my 360 or PS3. It's my music and as a VERY honest owner and buyer of multimedia (games, movies and music) I get kinda of insulted if music cooperations want to nickel and dime me for music I already own. I'm a honest customer that don't copy or download my entertainment software. Respect my purchase.
Posted by: Dogma | July 20, 2008 at 05:01 AM
Depends really on how much Microoft wants to stand it's ground.
Microsoft has a history of caving/siding with the demands of big media. Take the cut of the Zune sales that goes to universal (I think it was them) and the topic of content filtering for copyrighted video material in the Zune app that Microsoft weakly denied to ever implement.
I could certainly see some labels trying their luck exerting pressure on Microsoft to get a cut of the revenue from each copy of Lips that is sold.
Posted by: Quirk | July 17, 2008 at 09:34 AM
I think you're trying to make a controversy where one doesn't need to exist. The fact of the matter is Microsoft's 360 OS lets me stream my music to it from whatever source I use. LIPS is nothing more than software (just like the OS) streaming music. Where's the confusion? The RIAA suing MS for LIPS would be equivalent to them suing for the 360 OS, it's just not an issue!
Posted by: Danny | July 17, 2008 at 06:32 AM
But that's the point. The music industry has been lucky so far that they've got to sell the same songs to consumers multiple times on different formats. But why should they? Once a consumer has paid for a song, why should they have to keep paying for it?
Copyright is there to make sure creators of content are remunerated for their work. And once a song's been bought once, they have been. End of story.
The music industry would do well to remember that copyrights are a monopoly granted to them by governments for the public good (encouraging creativity). Once they start abusing them to stifle creativity, there's no reason the public representatives in government should act to help them do that.
Posted by: Jeremy | July 17, 2008 at 01:36 AM