Courtney Love Unleashes on Activision

In what may turn out to be the Battle of Seattle, Courtney Love and the living members of Nirvana, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, are expressing their extreme displeasure with Activision's use of the late Kurt Cobain's image in Guitar Hero 5, the latest iteration of its rock-and-roll play-along franchise.

The game, which was released on September 1, features an avatar based on Cobain that's nearly photo-realistic in detail. Activision was granted the use of Nirvana's songs and Cobain's likeness to play them, but Love, Novoselic, and Grohl are objecting to the fact that players can use the late singer-guitarist's image to play other—lamer—bands' songs. (Imagine how upset Cobain would be if he knew he'd be playing along with Sublime's cheese-ska ditty "What I Got" forevermore.)

In a statement posted on Kotaku, a videogame blog, Novoselic and Grohl said, "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."

Love, who sold 50 percent of her stake in her late husband's song catalog in a controversial deal Portfolio's Julia Dennis reported on in March, was less circumspect. "WE are going to sue the shit out of ACtivision [sic.]," she wrote on a Twitter post quoted by MTV's Multiplayer blog.

In fact, Love's Twitter feed features a long (and growing) thread about her displeasure over Activision and others.

Love's attorney, Keith A. Fink (whom Love called "the single man who has stood UP" in a tweet from September 10), told Kotaku, "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."

Activision, for its part, is claiming Love granted them permission to make Cobain "a fully playable character in Guitar Hero 5."

It would be easy to dismiss this case as a minor spat between rights holders, but there's a lot at stake on both sides. Gaming is a $40 billion-a-year industry and Activision, which merged with French telecom company Vivendi in 2007 to form Activision Blizzard, is a top player. After the merger, the combined revenue of Activision Blizzard was in the neighborhood of $3.8 billion. Vivendi reported $2.1 billion in profits for the first half of 2009 even though the Associated Press reported today that videogames are actually down this year. The article cites Guitar Hero 5 and The Beatles: Rock Band, which came out two days ago, as reasons to be hopeful about the sector this month. (Both Guitar Hero and Rock Band were developed by Harmonix, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company Portfolio's David Kushner wrote about in 2007.)

These play-along games are profitable for musicians too. According to Daniel Radosh's recent New York Times Magazine cover story about The Beatles: Rock Band, "Increasingly, games are also seen as a significant distribution platform in their own right. In its first week, Motley Crue’s 2008 single 'Saints of Los Angeles' sold nearly five times as many copies on Rock Band as it did on iTunes, and at twice the price."

With so much money at stake, who will blink first? If Love and the former members of Nirvana really are concerned about Cobain's legacy—as opposed to a payday—it's hard to imagine Activision will be able to resolve this with a really big check.