This time No Doubt suing over Band Hero. Lawsuit claims are very similar to the Courtney Love one about the use of Kurt Cobain in GH5.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/11/no-doubt-sues-activision-over-band-hero.html
Yeah, boyeeeee!!
Except Courtney Love is fucked in the head, and Gwen Stefani (AFAIK) is not. So maybe this one will go somewhere. Love never actually sued, did she?
You know, I’m not exactly sure if she ever did.
I want to say that Activision produced the relevant contract, prompting Love to STFU.
the Character Manipulation Feature results in an unauthorized performance by the Gwen Stefani avatar in a male voice boasting about having sex with prostitutes.”
ahaha
This is just No Doubt trying to create some controversy. They were relevant almost a decade ago, not so much now. Get over it.
I’m sure Activision will produce the relevant contract just like they did with Love. I think the breakdown is that the artists don’t really understand what it means when they say that the avatar can be unlocked for use with other songs. I don’t think they really get that the players will be using them to sing the most ludicrous songs on Youtube. Shame.
I would think that the recording artists also have their own set of lawyers. I highly doubt that they are just signing off without review. Well, ok, Courtney I’d believe it, but with No Doubt it sounds a bit more questionable as to who is legally in the right here.
Regardless of the contract, I do feel it was in poor taste to have Cobain singing other artist’s songs. It just looked goofy and was, frankly, a little disrespectful. They could have easily patched that out but didn’t.
Rockband: Beatles has spoiled me – it is hard to watch GH or RB (though not as bad as the avatars are a little more realistic) now that I’ve played it.
As compared to what? Having Johnny Cash perform… virtually anything in the game? The goofiness is fun, unlike most of the rest of the GH5 experience. I just wish I’d known earlier that I could do the same with Gwen Stefani for my inappropriate all star line up.
I really don’t get this sentiment.
This will only get cool once the games actually incorporate algorithms to really have Johnny Cash perform virtually anything in the game, in his voice and style. Probably 5 years away, maybe 10, but not much more. You could have him do Hurt and see how the algorithm does versus his actual version.
Then you have him do a bunch of songs by the Wiggles.
Chris
Have you played the game? While limited in other regards, the Kurt Cobain zombie moves in mysterious ways for some of the songs. Don’t know if Johnny follows suit, but I think the emphasis here is not on recreation of interesting things so much as crass gratification. Which I’m fine with, of course.
Yes, but I play with the actual real life zombies of Kurt and Johnny, so my experience might be a little different. The main problem is the chunks coming off during drum solos.
Chris
Mmmmm, TASTY!
Sounds like all the No Doubt representatives not actually having a clue about how Avatars etc in games work - probably the reps are not gamers.
They probably thought they were signing a deal akin to using the songs/likeneses in a movie, TV series or commercial etc - completely missing the significance of the avatar being a playable / controllable entity for the player.
Or the people at Activision could have withheld / glossed over this feature as the suit alleges.
Artists rarely understand what is going on with these licensing deals since they are generally done by their business agents. For example, Weird Al has been criticized by people who’s agents had already approved the Weird Al parody. This is no different.
Gwen Stefani is just a girl in the world, because that is all you’ll let her be. Just a girl living in captivity.