Rock Band Network: Developer Quotes and Clarification

[kiggidykev]

RBN songs will be available for sale in North America (inc Canada) and Europe. Submitters of RBN songs will need to be from the U.S.

Oh thank goodness!

[HMXMister_Game]

I have a band and we have a lot of questions. What will happen with the rights of the songs? We should give them to Harmonix? What happens with the tax, and the legal issues? ...

Patience, my young Jedi. All will be revealed soon.

The Terms Of Use for submitters spell out exactly what song rights we ask for. Generally speaking, we will only ask for what we need to review and distribute the songs in the game, but pretty soon you'll be able to read over the whole agreement in minute detail.

[Ilikemyname]

If there's no way we can show we have rights to a cover??? How can we show we even have rights to our own songs??

Nevemind found the answer in another thread...So I'm guessing we can do covers if we have all parties in agreement?

[aspiring]

You could still have your own stuff in the game. You'll just need to use a US company to submit it for you.

That would require some serious money and/or time. I dont think its going to happen for a lot of bands that are unsigned and would like to use this to get a bit of money and exposure. I do wonder why HMX have chosen this though.

[RayMkII]

How is this all going to work for online play? Currently, as it is, all people in your online party have to have a song downloaded for it to be playable over XBL. With this new system there's going to be TONS of songs. How are these going to be playable online? From what it looks like now we're NEVER going to get to play ANY of these songs online. Is that just an unavoidable disadvantage of having so many tracks or are there plans for a workaround?

[cherokeesam]

How is this all going to work for online play? Currently, as it is, all people in your online party have to have a song downloaded for it to be playable over XBL. With this new system there's going to be TONS of songs. How are these going to be playable online? From what it looks like now we're NEVER going to get to play ANY of these songs online. Is that just an unavoidable disadvantage of having so many tracks or are there plans for a workaround?

That's why it'll pay even more to check out the "Bands Wanted" forum, and check out the list of people with similar DLC to you. Random band quickplay has always been a terrible idea, and even more so once RBN kicks in. Play only with friends, online and off, not random strangers.

[Viewtiful Jason]

So from what I understand this is for people who want to do it themselves. But, the idea of having separate stores still seems confusing to me, especially if big name artists and record labels have this power also. Indie stuff I understand, but now this just seems kind of unnecessary. Do people who really get a lot of attention on RBN have their songs re-charted by Harmonix and put in the Music Store? By that I mean does this act as a sort of waiting list to get onto the Music Store, a sort of "prove your worth"?

[NormanCoxwell]

So it appears that the lack of covers is strategically a good thing but how exactly is that going to be enforced?

[Thom1234]

I thought this would be US-only (for making/uploading,) but it still sucks.

[Apples]

It sort of boggles me how much emphasis/questioning is being put on cover songs given the immense feedback and lashback against them from the early days of Rock Band.

I mean, back in the day people were boycotting them, and blasting the idea at every turn.