As we reported earlier today, Courtney Love isn't too happy about Kurt Cobain's appearance in the recently released Guitar Hero 5, so much so that she's threatened legal action against the videogame's creators Activision. Well, the company has now issued a statement about the whole debacle, refreshing Love's memory that she actually cleared the way to use Cobain's image.
"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," the statement reads.
It also adds that "Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, the two surviving members of Nirvana, have no say whatsoever in the usage of Kurt Cobain's likeness."
Of course, we were all expecting such a response, just like we're now expecting Love to follow this with more nasty Tweets.
UPDATE: Nirvana's Novoselic and Grohl have now issued a statement of their own:
"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."
"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," the statement reads.
It also adds that "Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, the two surviving members of Nirvana, have no say whatsoever in the usage of Kurt Cobain's likeness."
Of course, we were all expecting such a response, just like we're now expecting Love to follow this with more nasty Tweets.
UPDATE: Nirvana's Novoselic and Grohl have now issued a statement of their own:
"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."
