—Music games help artists (not labels) rake in the dough: Music game franchises like Activision (NSDQ: ATVI) Blizzard’s Guitar Hero and MTV Games’ Rock Band are making some bands more money than their latest albums. Kai Huang, co-founder of RedOctane (the Activision studio that first developed Guitar Hero), told the AP that Aerosmith made more money from sales of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (which launched in June) than from either of its last two albums. The music games offer multiple revenue streams for artists that appear in them: initial sales (which topped $1.9 billion in the past 12 months, per NPD), downloadable song sales (new tracks typically cost about $1.99, though some are offered for free) and image and likeness licensing fees; the latter of which typically bypass the labels.

And the labels want a bigger cut, particularly as CD sales continue to dwindle. The problem is, they don’t have much leverage, as these games use fewer than 1,000 tracks combined. If a given label decides not to allow its content to be used, the gaming companies will find other songs—and their artists might even leave. Wedbush Morgan entertainment analyst Michael Pachter told the AP: “If Warner wants to say we’ll take our 20 percent of the market and go away, a lot of bands are going to leave the label if they think they can get better exposure by being on these games.”