Last August, Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. publicly complained about the royalties structure in today's music video games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Bronfman called the fees Warner receives in exchange for music licenses "very paltry."

According to a new report in Billboard, this kind of mentality has led to a "stalemate" between Rock Band publisher MTV Games and Warner Music. Citing multiple sources, Billboard said that since Bronfman made the licensing comments last year, Warner has not struck any new content deals for the Rock Band platform.

"MTV requested several new licenses in that time, under the same deal terms as before, but WMG responded with counter-offers that MTV would not agree to. So MTV has stopped requesting new licenses until both parties can resolve the licensing dispute," Billboard explained.

Although Warner Music artists such as the Grateful Dead, Pretenders and others continue to be added as downloadable tracks in Rock Band, these DLC offerings are the result of previous licensing agreements with WMG, before Bronfman changed his tune [pardon the pun – Ed.]. If the two parties don't resolve their conflict, Rock Band will soon run out of Warner DLC to add to its music store.

As Billboard points out, WMG would appear to be comfortable sitting back and waiting to see if MTV will reconsider the pay structure. In fact, WMG recently removed its content from YouTube and previously pulled music from Last.fm and Nokia's mobile music store – all a result of similar licensing arguments.

The situation with Rock Band rival Guitar Hero is likely not much better. After Bronfman made his initial comments in August, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick immediately fired back, saying that Activision would "favor those publishers that recognize and appreciate how much we can add value to their artists."