Activision Blizzard's (AB) CEO Robert Kotick has been pondering something lately: should the music industry be paying him for the music he uses in the Guitar Hero games, and not the other way around?

While it may seem absurd at first, it's really just simple economics. Similar to the situation last year where radio stations and music labels were debating who should get what, if the company is providing a service to the artists (promotion) worth far more than what it's paying, shouldn't it (AB in this case) get the royalty money, or at least not have to pay? And it's certainly a lucrative service: as of July, over 20 million songs have been downloaded via Guitar Hero games, and there are tons of statistics out there which proclaim the impact the game has had on sales (tickets, albums, songs, etc.) outside of it.

"When you look at the impact [Guitar Hero] can have on an Aerosmith, Van Halen or Metallica, it's really significant," Kotick told The Wall Street Journal, "so much so that you sort of question whether or not, in the case of those kinds of products, you should be paying any money at all and whether it should be the reverse."

Nevertheless, Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman says the royalties they get from the game companies are "paltry", and they should be charging more since games like Guitar Hero depend entirely on licensed music.

Seems valid enough, but Kotick has a retort:

"We have lots of music to choose from, lots of artists to choose from. A 12-year-old kid has no idea who Steven Tyler is or who Aerosmith is. The bulk of our consumers will tell you they're not purchasing the products based on the songs that are included. They're purchasing based on how fun the songs are to play when they're playing them."

What do you think? Should Activision Blizzard be paid for promoting music as much as they do, should companies like Warner be paid more for licensing "their" music, or should they just call it even and noone pays anything?