Rock Band Network: Developer Quotes and Clarification

[SonicRocker15X]

A couple clarifications.

- Song length must be between 30 seconds and 10 minutes.
- Any combination of instruments is fair game, including solo instruments (even acapella!)
- Final pricing is still subject to change, but it's likely to be a choice of $1, $2, or $3. Submitters can change the price once per quarter.
- Every song has a demo version, which is the first 1 minute, or 35% of the song (whichever is shorter), and you can play that demo as many times as you want. You can play the demos multiplayer, but not during network play.

edit: more stuff I forgot the first time

30 seconds? Wow. We're practically going to get TV show themes out of this.

[cherokeesam]

30 seconds? Wow. We're practically going to get TV show themes out of this.

Not unless you know somebody who owns the rights to a TV show theme.

RBN is going to be 99.99% original content; as you must have read in the FAQ, covers are *not* allowed, nor will you be allowed to upload content that you don't own the copyright for.

[NiwirBigal]

Okay, just to clarify something I've been wondering. We can't upload songs we don't have the rights to, but will it be possible for a user to chart a song themselves and just have it on their own 360 for personal use, without having to submit the song online?

[cherokeesam]

Okay, just to clarify something I've been wondering. We can't upload songs we don't have the rights to, but will it be possible for a user to chart a song themselves and just have it on their own 360 for personal use, without having to submit the song online?

Probably.
That seems to be the purpose of the Auditioning we'll get after the patch for RB 2.2 comes out in a few weeks. You'll be able to test-play songs on your own game before submitting them for review.

Not sure if you'd be able to actually save and store those tracks, though, so if you're looking to put your entire iTunes into your own personal RB setlist, I srsly doubt that's gonna happen.

[NiwirBigal]

Yeah, storing them was what I meant.

[Krutzak]

Breaking Article:
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/conte...8bf1f3ea673d95

Dead link there!

EDIT: fixed now

[newfroJDIX]

Wow, Rock Band just continues to kick more ass every day. I swear it boggles my mind how Guitar Hero is even a competing product anymore, especially with this new beauty which makes GHTunes look like a children's toy.

[Avatar_Ko]

Apples, do you mind if we post more questions for the devs here?

I'm wondering how the content delivery is taken care of? Do the songs still need to be submitted through Xbox Live (meaning they'll have to wait for Tuesdays they'll appear in the RB page in the marketplace and they're subject to whatever problems MS has with the marketplace) or is this bypassing that?

[sandswipe]

1. I'm in america, so while I'm not directly affected by the USA only rule, it seems rather harsh. Could a HMXer clarify on the reasoning behind that, and an estimates for when we could get some foreign rock? Most of my favorite bands are British (everyone from The Who to Iron Maiden to Franz Ferdinand), and the continent, Australia, Africa, Asia, and South America all have hundreds of great artists. This can't be fair to them.

2. Regarding original songs: say I'm in a band, and we do a mix of original songs, covers of well known songs, and rewritten covers of songs that have been in the public domain for a hundred years (for popular examples think Grateful Dead's Cold Rain and Snow or Zeppelin's Gallows Pole). If we do a rewrite of a song in the public domain, would that be permissible on Rock Band Network, or would we have to write one hundred percent original material?

[The Highway To Hell]

I'm really confused, what's the difference between this and the music store. They sound exactly the same.