Courtney Love has threatened to sue Activision, according to her Twitter account, over the inclusion of her late-husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, in Guitar Hero 5.
The main reason for this controversy is due to the fact that Cobain is an unlockable character in the game. This means that gamers can actually have Kurt Cobain’s avatar singing any song in the entire game, no matter what song it is. This is something that many people are uncomfortable with, most obviously the ones who were closest to the singer in real-life.
“I cannot allow this to stand… For the record, this Guitar Hero sh*t is breach of contract on a Bullys part and there will be a proper addressing of this and retraction.
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have fun with your avatars you slimebags, i rant? f*ck off i have proof youve simply never bothred to look. so f*cking play your videogame.
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WE are going to sue the sh*t out of ACtivision we being the Trust the Estate the LLC the various LLCs Cobain Enterprises.”
“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.”
Activision vice president Tim Riley offered more detail in an interview with The Guardian, saying it was “great to work with Love. 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. … She wanted a sort of athletic definition but not overly so.”
Meanwhile Kurt Cobain’s former bandmates, Dave Grohl of The Foo Fighters and Krist Novoselic of Nirvana, posted the following on their official web-site.
“We are dismayed and disappointed in the use of Cobain’s likeness in the game. The name and likeness of Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate; we have no control whatsoever in that area,” the pair said. “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.”
And so the drama unfolds. Personally I don’t see it as a big deal, and I think this kind of thing only makes Kurt more popular than ever before. But I can see how/why people close to him would be upset by seeing him singing songs that he has nothing to do with and/or would never sing in real life. But either way I think it’s really being blown out of proportion, and all of this drama only gives more attention to Activision and the game itself.
Via GameSpot, Evil Avatar, Nirvana wallpaper, Kurt Cobain wallpaper