Kurt Cobain’s widow, Courtney Love, has amended her position on her husband’s appearance in Guitar Hero 5, saying that he would have found it ‘funny’.
Courtney Love made headlines in the gaming press last year after she lashed out at Activision’s use of her husband’s likeness in Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero, saying she was going to ‘sue the shit’ out of the company. Activision responded, saying that Love had signed the necessary contracts for them to use Cobain’s likeness as they did and no suit was filed.
But just a few months later and Love seems to have changed her tune. In an interview with NME Magazine, Love said: “What pisses me off the most about it is I think Kurt would be fine with having five Kurt Cobains singing the (Spice Girls) song Wannabe, like, ‘Tell me what you want, what you really really want.’ … I think he’d find that really funny.”
She went on to say that she wanted to join the lawsuit that Gwen Stefani had started over the alleged misuse of her likeness in Band Hero: “…it’s gross what they did. Gwen started the lawsuit. I have really good lawyers now and will join that lawsuit. There was this grey area and they fucked the lot of us. They didn’t fuck Jack White, but they fucked Gwen, fucked Johnny Cash and fucked Kurt … It’s just gross. This is the rock ‘n’ roll business, this is what people do. They are sleazy; they do sleazy things.”
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out, assuming that Love is allowed to join the lawsuit, as she seems to be espousing two different positions on the issue. In both cases it seems that Activision has used the artists’ likeness for more than was intended, but is this just a case of ‘always reads the fine print’, or do the artists have a legitimate case?
Source: GamePro
