When MTV Games and Harmonix secured the rights to make a Beatles video game last year, you probably thought "Man, they must've paid a crapload of money for that." Well, you were right.

According to the LA Times, MTV and Harmonix's parent company Viacom will pay Beatles rights holders (Apple Corp, EMI Music) a minimum of $10 million dollars for using the Beatles' likenesses and songs in The Beatles: Rock Band. Depending on how well the game sells, Viacom could pay out $40 million or more in royalties as well.

According to the LA Times article, these rights payments will result in a slimmer profit margin than other Rock Band titles. They're at least getting a lot of songs for their buck, though. The game will ship with 45 songs on September 9th. Over the course of the year, three additional albums will be released as premium downloadable content, essentially doubling the amount of songs available for the game.