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Courtney Love To Sue Activision Over Kurt Cobain’s Guitar Hero Avatar
Courtney Love, the widow of former Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, has threatened to sue publisher Activision for breach of contract over her late husband’s appearance in Guitar Hero 5.
“For the record this Guitar Hero shit is breach of contract on a Bullys part and there will be a proper addressing of this and retraction,” Love said on her Twitter account, later adding: “WE are going to sue the shit out of ACtivision we being the Trust the Estate the LLC the various LLCs Cobain Enterprises.”
Activision has since issued a statement to various news outlets, including Kotaku, defending Cobain’s depiction in the game. “Guitar Hero secured the necessary licensing rights from the Cobain estate in a written agreement signed by Courtney Love to use Kurt Cobain’s likeness as a fully playable character in Guitar Hero 5,” the publisher said.
Activision vice president Tim Riley also told the Guardian: "Courtney supplied us with photos and videos. She picked the wardrobe and hairstyle, which turned out to be the 'Teen Spirit' look, then we went back and forth over changes – some subtle, some not so subtle.”
However, Love’s attorney, Keith Fink, told VG247: “Activision’s statement is not accurate in suggesting that they were given an unfettered use of Kurt’s name and likeness. The agreement Activision has with the trust doesn’t grant them the right to use his name and likeness in ways that denigrate his image. We are demanding the trust take appropriate action to protect Mr. Cobain’s image and would hope Activision would do so on its own accord and prohibit users of the game from singing songs of others.”
Former Nirvana band members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl have also expressed their unease over the use of Cobain’s likeness in Guitar Hero 5, telling the Associated Press: “While we were aware of Kurt's image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn't know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in 're-locking' Kurt's character so that this won't continue in the future.”
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
You can't take it back!! If the rights to use Kurt's image were sold to Activision as reported, its tough titties now! Maybe she should have been more astute when reading the small print before taking yet another sum of money on behalf of the Cobain Estate.
Either way, the deal was signed, sealed and delivered and no amount of bleating to your lawyers is going to make Activision change their minds, considering the game is now on general release! Doesn't matter how Loud, out spoken or obnoxious you are.
Courtney Love is a money grabbing bitch and I'm sure most of us here wish she had chewed on those shotgun barrels :P
This story is hilarious. I'm finding it very difficult to decide whose point of view I could care less about.
I have no interest in defending Activision's remorseless profit-mining of pop culture, find Courtney Love's sudden pretence that she cares about an estate she's happy to blindly flog completely laughable, and think anyone who's really that upset about the representation of an overrated dead pop star is so precious that their views are probably irrelevant. Then again, all the people violently slating Courtney Love are acting just as overwrought and irrationally as she is, which just makes it even funnier.
I hope everyone involved keeps getting in a massively disproportionate stew about this for two reasons. 1) because it's entertaining that anything so trivial and banal causes this much fuss, and 2) maybe eventually I'll work out which bit of wrongheaded nonsense is the most indefensibly daft.
This entire episode is ridiculous but at least Courtney Love has the whole "batshit insane" thing going for her. Grohl and Novoselic just come off like some mewling little babies. Nuts to the lot of them.
Since she signed the contract there ain't a lick much she can do about this. I imagine she had no idea what the hell she was signing in the first place, but unless she was witnessed at the time as legally intoxicated, then I doubt this'll go anywhere.
That said, though, this is becoming a rather massive PR disaster for Activision. Simply stating that she signed the contract isn't going to satiate her, or any of the Cobain fans that find this portrayal disgusting. It's the exact contrast with The Beatles that best shows the difference between Harmonix and the gradually degrading GH series. One of them loves music, and the other loves money. Guess which is which! Activision should just cave and patch the game so Cobain isn't singing any other songs (though he shoudln't be in the game in any right. Who the hell at Activision was stupid enough to think this would actually sell units?)
Activision doesn't have to do anything cause they're in the right, Love is raising a big stink over a contract she most likely didn't even read, this is also good PR cause it keeps GH5 in the news and I doubt many Nirvana fans would side with Love
1) Everybody saw this coming, coz.......
2) Courtney Love is a skank, with......
3) A license to print money, slowly bringing.....
4) The whole Kurt Cobain legacy to a sickening conclusion of fate and irony, puppet 4 cash!
Activision play there part too - Kurt cobain playing Avril Lavine or Blink 1-eighty-2! Jeesus!
I'll live to see Joe Strummer and Ian Curtis in digital flesh, I'm sure of it!
I see a resemblance.
Should I be worried that I do too?
i agree man
Courtney Love is drugged up skank. She should have died instead of Kurt.
Easy, tiger. That's not the kind of thing you say lightly.
I wonder if they got permission from Daniel Johnston's estate to use his T-shirt.
http://www.hihowareyou.com/