Music labels are beginning to see the benefits of licensing their music for mobile applications—specifically that it’s not by getting a lot of money from the developer or operator. The Christian Science Monitor has a piece focusing on Tap Tap Revenge, a music-based iPhone game that has been downloaded by more than 6 million unique users—it runs a weekly showcase where gamers can download free tracks and if they like it buy the song from iTunes. The result? More than 250,000 users downloaded Hot N Cold by Katy Perry, and 56,000 went on to buy the song from iTunes. Alternative rock group Anberlin sold thousands of a song, with people blogging and posting to YouTube about it: “Fans become a part of the music by playing it. They get a more intense feeling for the song” reckons the drummer for the group.

SEE ALSO: Report: Mobile Music To Grow To $16.8 Billion In 2013

“There’s a big revenue stream here, certainly,” says Windsor Holden, the principal analyst at Juniper Research, a telecommunications firm that specializes in mobile technology. “Initially, labels were very, very wary of entering this space. There were issues of [digital rights management], and even then, the labels wanted such a cut of the revenue, that the [mobile] operators weren’t interested. Eventually, they came to realize that the mobile is a very attractive platform for their music.”