14 DAY TRIAL // A few month ago, Courtney Love, the former wife of the late Kurt Cobain, Nirvana's front man, started making some rather harsh accusations that were pointed towards Activision and its Guitar Hero 5. The original charges stated that, while the game allowed players to use Cobain's likeness to perform an entire plethora of songs, the contract only allowed Activision to use Cobain's image to play Nirvana songs. But time has passed since then, and the pointy edges of her story have been polished. Unfortunately, while the story itself has been tweaked to be a lot more altruistic, the tools used have sharper edges than the original shrapnel.
Talking to U.K.'s NME magazine, Love fired a barrage of statements, most of them made up of a rather strong language. This time around, she believes that Cobain would not have any objections to his virtual self performing songs originally played by other artists. In fact, she believes that he would find it rather amusing. This, however, doesn't mean that the lawsuits are going away.
"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," Love said. She continued by explaining that Activision took advantage of some gray areas of the contracts, and that the publisher used this to abuse the agreements made between some artists and itself.
"It's just gross," Love added. "This is the rock 'n' roll business, this is what people do. They are sleazy; they do sleazy things." But this kind of accusations never looks good when the one making them is part of the type of people that is being nailed to the wall. Love is part of the "rock 'n' roll business," so her statement applies to her actions as well. If Cobain would indeed be OK with the idea, as she now claims, then there is no point to any lawsuit beyond that of her personal gain.