With the announcement earlier this year that no new commercial Rock Band DLC will be released through the Rock Band Music Store (although Rock Band Network is still producing a few items), there is an issue that will start to erode into the vast library of DLC titles that has been built up in the store over the five or so years the franchise was active.
About once every three months, term limits on older Rock Band DLC comes up for re-licensing between Harmonix and owner of the rights to those songs. While Harmonix is actively trying to extend these licenses, it appears that a deal won’t be able to be worked out with many of these songs for whatever reason. Unfortunately, when this happens, the songs or song pack has to be pulled from the Rock Band Music store and is no longer available for sale.
So what does this mean? Well, those that have purchased the songs will continue to own that content and be able to download it again from their download history if necessary, but no additional purchases will be able to be made. In addition, this means that the Rock Band Music store will continue to get smaller as licenses expire and are not renewed. So far in 2013, there has been just over 30 songs (and their packs) that are no longer out there for purchase.
So if there are certain songs that you think you may want for the next time you dust off your Rock Band gear, you may want to get them as soon as possible, because they may not be out there the next time you look. You can follow along on the Harmonix Forums in the Licensing Thread by checking back about every three months. It looks like late November we may see another round of songs removed. Here are the songs and packs that have been pulled from the Rock Band Music store to date:
April 2013
June 2013
August/September 2013
