Quite a controversy have stemmed from the inclusion of Kurt Cobain as a character in the latest volume of the popular Guitar Hero game from Activision. Cobain's widow Courtney Love made claims to sue Activision for breach of contract as a result of use of Cobain as a playable character. Love made the following Twitter remark:
For the record this Guitar Hero shit is breach of contract on a Bullys part and there will be a proper addressing of this and retraction. We are going to sue the shit out of ACtivision we being the Trust the Estate the LLC the various LLCs Cobain Enterprises
Activision responded to the allegations made by Love with the following statement:
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.
Love further established her position in an official statement:
Ms. Cobain is extremely upset about Activision's use of Mr. Cobain's likeness to sing the songs of others in its Guitar Hero game. Activision was granted permission by Kurt's trust solely to use his name and likeness. Activision was not given an unbridled right to use Mr. Cobain's name and likeness. Kurt's songs have a special and unique meaning to his fans and his image and legacy are very important to Ms. Cobain. The agreement Activision has with the trust doesn't allow them to use his likeness in ways that denigrate his image. We would hope Activision would do the right thing on its own and prohibit game users from using Kurt's image to sing others songs and if they don't we expect the trust to take appropriate action to protect Mr. Cobain's image.
Meanwhile, former bandmates Dave Ghrol and Krist Novoselic commented on the use of Cobain the gaming system:
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.
