The Romantics sues Guitar Hero 80's developer Activision

[Angry_Games]

Yeah...and you'll love WHY:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/11/22/guitar.hero.suit.ap/index.html


The band's attorneys tell the Detroit Free Press for Thursday's edition that Activision properly secured permission to use "What I Like About You," allowing it to record a cover version.
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But they say by creating an imitation so much like the Romantics' original, the California-based company infringed on the group's rights to its own likeness.

are we Americans the most greedy, stupid people on earth?

[Elnino]

Wait, they let them cover the song, but they are suing them, because it sounds too much like the original?

[nicko68]

I heard that is why in Guitar Hero 1, there are no lyrics to Spanish Castle Magic, because the singer sounded too much like Jimi Hendrix.

[Angry_Games]

is this not the stupidest, most ridiculous bunch of nonsense you've ever heard in your life????

[senomar]

I heard that is why in Guitar Hero 1, there are no lyrics to Spanish Castle Magic, because the singer sounded too much like Jimi Hendrix.
Wrong.

It was because the cover vocals sounded too little like Jimi Hendrix, and the Hendrix estate disapproved of it. Or at least that's what I heard.

[nicko68]

Wrong.

It was because the cover vocals sounded too little like Jimi Hendrix, and the Hendrix estate disapproved of it. Or at least that's what I heard.

D'oh, I think you're right. Well that changes everything. :)

So what are they supposed to do, sound a lot like the original artist, or sound nothing like it? Ridiculous.

[Blue88]

D'oh, I think you're right. Well that changes everything. :)

So what are they supposed to do, sound a lot like the original artist, or sound nothing like it? Ridiculous.

Actually, I heard that the first cover sounded too little like Jimi Hendrix, so they disapproved, but when they rerecorded it, they said it sounded too much like Hendrix and disapproved. At that point, HMX gave up and just didn't record vocals.

[atomic_il]

They made a mockery of Beast and the Harlot..... i started laughing when i heard that cover the first time :)

[_GABO_]

They made a mockery of Beast and the Harlot..... i started laughing when i heard that cover the first time :)

They made a mockery of Beast and the Harlot? That wasn't horrible, but did you hear Carry On Wayward Son?! Now that was a mockery.

[FrshChees]

They killed "Killing In The Name Of" and "Last Child" big time!

But yeah thats just ridiculous, it makes no sense. They're HAS BEENS! That should be happy they even wanted to use their song. GEEZ!

[Quinarvy]

All I can say is "lol"

[devo193]

They are sofa king we Todd Ed

[Julio_No_Mas]

Wrong.

It was because the cover vocals sounded too little like Jimi Hendrix, and the Hendrix estate disapproved of it. Or at least that's what I heard.

That's wrong too. The Hendrix estate disapproved of Jimi being impersonated at all, making it be an instrumental only.

[nicko68]

I just hope this lawsuit isn't successful. Otherwise all kinds of music games that have covers will be at risk for lawsuits. It is kinda nice that the cover singers sound somewhat like the original. I don't see what The Romantics are all up in arms about though. It's not like I'm going to record the song from GH80s, rip it to mp3 and listen to it.

[Angry_Games]

here's what I don't get

we get all kinds of covers on GH1 and GH2 etc, and we piss and moan about how awful some of the covers are. This means we want covers to sound more like the originals.

So GH gets a cover song that sounds exactly (or close) like an original, and a band sues them AFTER giving permission to do a cover?

The Romantics just need to die. They remind me of Metallica and all the stupid nonsense Metallica has done to alienate their original fans.

[Raider87]

Ya that's really stupid... I really don't understand what these people are thinking to do something like this... I mean how stupid do you really have to be?

[Zookey]

Words can't state how sad this is. And the music industry wonders why many people think they are a joke? Real artists get the shaft while money hungry losers rise to the top--there is a few great bands out there but they make up like 7% of popular music---and the rest of the talent has to be indy because they aren't money hungry enough to compete against the shallow ones. LOL We should make Ant-this-dumb-@$$-band-pro-Harmonix-t-shirts.

[Hellcat305]

Wait, they let them cover the song, but they are suing them, because it sounds too much like the original?


And if this succeeds, soon bands will sue tribute bands that sound too much like the original band or even...can you imagine...BETTER!!!


Honestly I would think that the legal department woudl have purchased rights that did not penalize the cover song for being too good(or on the other hand too bad, as in not sounding like the original). As long as they did not use the song for other that its stated use, the Romantics would likely lose this lawsuit.

[Methodis]

Wow the buckets of mis information in here.

Spanish Castle Magic: Vocals were recorded. On the original GH site, they had previews of the songs, and SCM was one of them, and it had vocals in it. It was later decided by Harmonix that they'd rather leave the vocals out and keep it instrumental.

Killing in the Name: Vocals were recorded that sounded almost spot on to Zack's. Zack threw a hissy fit, similiar to the Romantics about how close they were, and threatened to sue unless they had a different singer sing the song.

I Want Candy: The song was done and in the game (still is in the Press builds), was removed for some "bull****" according to Ted Lange.

[espher]

So now if you wonder why the covers don't sound right, you know.

[DIEGOROBOT26]

I sued a girl once for putting something too far down her throat.

[Quinarvy]

I sued a girl once for putting something too far down her throat.

That had no relevance to the thread...

[xlr8shun]

They killed "Killing In The Name Of" and "Last Child" big time!

But yeah thats just ridiculous, it makes no sense. They're HAS BEENS! That should be happy they even wanted to use their song. GEEZ!

they made a mockery of dio doing holy diver...

oh wait.. never mind, dio did that on his own..

;)