Activision: Love Signed Contract Over Cobain's Avatar

11 Sep 2009 at 12:56:35 by Bill Vaughan

Activision has responded to claims made yesterday that it was in breach of contract over use of a representation of Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero 5.

Courtney Love said she would “sue the shit” out of Activision after the company apparently used Cobain's avatar in Guitar Hero 5 without her approval. She made the statement via her Twitter account, and later went on to say that her late husband would have despised the game.

Activision has responded to the claims, stating that the proper authorisation was indeed obtained:

“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.”

Two surviving members of Nirvana, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, also issued a joint statement on the matter, urging Activision to “do the right thing” and remove the ability to make Cobain's avatar unlock-able in GH5, allowing it to perform any track in the game:

“This is a statement regarding Nirvana, Guitar Hero and the likeness of the late Kurt Cobain.

We want people to know that we are dismayed and very disappointed in the way a facsimile of Kurt is used in the Guitar Hero game.  The name and likeness of Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate - we have no control whatsoever in that area.

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.

It's hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists' music alongside cartoon characters.  Kurt Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world.  We feel he deserves better.

Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl”

A clip of Cobain's appearance in GH5 can be seen in the recent trailer.

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