Activision being sued again over represenations of musicians in game

Technically, David Spade was magically transformed from Tommy Boy, but it’s still horrible.

Yeah, this is what I was getting at in part. Contract or no, it might be a good idea to foster a good working relationship with the content providers for your games.

Look even if they are legally ok due to the contract, is it ok for them to do if they have misrepresented to the artist/estate what their intent was and hid the details in legalese?
Have they been negotiating in good faith?

I would think given how meticulous contracts are with bands and event companies for tours (things like what refreshments and food will be provided, what size room they have to be set up in, etc.) that the representatives for No Doubt read the contract completely.

I would think either their managerial team or legal team would have someone in their roster that knows about licensing in the video game universe. These groups are usually huge and have all facets of licensing covered. I could see where Courtney Love would screw it up, but given that No Doubt is currently or at least was recently on tour I just don’t see them or their people allowing something like this.

So, if they completely understood the contract, and knew all along that this would happen, why are they now suing Activison?

Activision probably has a strong contract, but I think it’s silly, or at least premature, to assume that No Doubt and their representatives fully understood the ramifications of the contract.

EDIT: By the way, does anyone have a link to the text of the complaint?

The more this happens, the more music artists who are interested in licensing to music games will hopefully take notice. Maybe even license their songs to my prefered (Rock Band) platform instead! Yeah!

There’s nothing disrespectful about it. No Doubt should be grateful that anyone today gives a shit about their music, as should the Nirvana stakeholders. If that takes the prancing of a dead guy who doesn’t care for obvious reasons, then so be it.

You might not have any respect for either No Doubt or Nirvana, but surely you can comprehend that there are fans out there who do have respect for them.

These fans are also the people who might be influenced to buy Guitar Hero, because of the inclusion of No Doubt or Kurt Cobain. Treating these bands in a way those fans find disrespectful is surely shutting out potential customers.

So a No Doubt fan has to choose:

  • have his favourite band as avatars in his favourite (?) game and be able to play as them

  • support his favourite band in their quest to restrict how and when they appear in a videogame for which they are getting paid.

Maybe I’m not fanboy enough, but as a fan (of other bands) I’d say screw the band’s legalese and give me #1!

Well, a hollaback girl has to carefully manage her public image.

I like them just fine, but I know bullshit when I see it. Grohl and No Doubt took their plastic game money hats, now be good sports about not reading the fine print. We should all be so lucky as to be “condemned” to sing a good Stones song in a videogame. The example cited requires such a ludicrous threshold for feeling offended.

These fans are also the people who might be influenced to buy Guitar Hero, because of the inclusion of No Doubt or Kurt Cobain. Treating these bands in a way those fans find disrespectful is surely shutting out potential customers.

Yeah, no. Courtney Love throwing a shit fit is not the sort of thing that is going to rile most normal people, and having essentially the same argument rehashed more intelligibly by other has-beens (in a literal sense) is not going to do much more. I guess the kind of fan who treats his favorite band like their personal mood ring would be affected, but as Metallinapster showed it’s possible for even those people to draw a line. They can go back to stalking Stefani via tabloids.

This doesn’t happen in GH5. You free-play and quick-play and what not with the last band used. Which is a better way to do it than RB. You can pick your crew and be your own guy or gal for all modes, not just career/tour.

LK

I think you’re being a little harsh. Music means a lot to people and those who were really into Nirvana are perfectly reasonable in being annoyed that they’ve put him on stage singing Public Enemy songs. It’s disrespectful to those who cared about him and his music.

You don’t have to agree, but I think you need to at least acknowledge that they are allowed to feel that way.

Why exactly is that disrespectful? What’s disrespectful about having an avatar sing an other artist’s wildly popular and successful songs? It would only be disrespectful if they were made to sing intentionally idiotic songs so as to be mocking them. That’s not the case, these are legitimate songs that many people love and there’s no intention to mock the virtual performers.

We’ll have to just disagree. Taking a dead, well loved musician and having him perform rap music is, to me, disrespectful of his memory. You seem to feel it’s OK which confuses me, but alright.

It goes beyond singing and also includes the characters actions and performance. Take the Public Enemy example above. When performing that song Kurt does not in any way appear to be acting like Kurt. Also they are not singing the other song, the avatar is lip-syncing it, so in the Garbage example you have female vocals coming out of a guys mouth. These are not covers people.

Yeah, that’s a large part of the disrepect angle for me. He’s bouncing around the stage, doing rap arm and body gestures, and generally acting completely unlike Kurt Cobain. It looks ridiculous.

Did Grohl actually make anything off of this? I thought when it came to the House of Cobain, it was all Courtney’s call.

I could honestly give a shit if they have Johnny Cash sing the Thong Song and Kurt Cobain blaring Taylor Swift. And I’ve been a fan of Johnny Cash’s since I was 6 and my dad and I took a road trip cross country singing One Piece at a Time and Ghost Riders in the Sky the entire time. That said, I still understand why some may find it disrespectful. I don’t, but I’m a jerk.

I can only see it being disrespectful if you don’t respect the content and/or the performance the avatar is engaged in.

Ask yourself this, would it be disrespectful if the Cobain avatar did a Pearl Jam or Soundgarden or some other music in the same vein as his own?

Did Grohl actually make anything off of this?

Grohl has a large enough money hat between Nirvana and Foo Fighters that I don’t think money really concerns or motivates him at this point.

Ask yourself this, would it be disrespectful if the Cobain avatar did a Pearl Jam or Soundgarden or some other music in the same vein as his own?

I don’t know, honestly. Look, here’s the bottom line - if people who knew him really well (Love, Grohl, and others) are upset and feel that this is not what he would have wanted then isn’t that enough?