Heaven 17 composer calls out Rockstar over alleged lowball GTA 6 music offer
Martyn Ware not pleased with proposed no-royalties deal
Any ambitions you may have had to relive that scene from Trainspotting in the nightclubs of open world game GTA 6 have been cruelly dashed. Martyn Ware - of 80's synthpop band Heaven 17 - took to Xitter over the weekend to share his experience of Rockstar games attempting to licence his song Temptation. The offer, which Ware describes as for “a buyout of any future royalties from the game”, was allegedly for $7500.
“I was recently contacted by my publishers on behalf of Rockstar Games re the possibility of using Temptation on the new Grand Theft Auto 6,” wrote Ware, who was also one of the founding members of The Human League - he left before they composed Keep Feeling Fascination, which featured in Vice City.
“Naturally excited about the immense wealth that was about to head my way, I scrolled to the bottom of the email re the offer…IT WAS $7500 - for a buyout of any future royalties from the game - forever. To put this in context, Grand Theft Auto 6 [sic] grossed, wait for it…$8.6 BILLION. Ah, but think of the exposure…Go fuck yourself”
From my laymen’s perspective, it seems the mention of a “full buyout” might be the issue here. Games often have to renegotiate soundtrack royalties for remasters and the like. Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition itself was missing several songs from the originals. Last week, Remedy announced that an update to Alan Wake would remove David Bowie’s Space Oddity from the game. Now, I’m just a simple country lawyer, but it might be that Rockstar are trying to avoid something similar by gobbling up the full rights to any tracks for GTA 6.
For a bit more context, here’s a thorough piece on music licensing from Matt Ombler at GI.biz.
"If you want to use music that's written by someone like Kanye West you can easily spend between $100,000 to $200,000 on a single track," Gross explains. "Sometimes labels are willing to lower rates if you choose a selection of tracks, or choose to feature music from an artist that might be up and coming. Games like FIFA and Grand Theft Auto are trend-setters for music. If you're an upcoming artist and you can get your music featured in games like these it can launch your career."
Back in April, GTA 6 publishers Take-Two laid off five per cent of their staff, equating to hundreds of job losses. GTA 6 itself is apparently out next fall. Don't read the replies to Ware's tweet if you want to have a good Monday.