Activision Sued by The Romantics Over Guitar Hero Cover Song
By Jonathan on Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 at 9:08 PM PST In Activision, Game Companies, Game Consoles, Game Related Laws, Games, Games Industry, Microsoft, Sony
The 80’s pop band, The Romantics, have filed suit against Activision over the cover of their song, “What I Like About You,” that appears in the game Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80’s. The band claims that the musicians performing the cover version in the game sound too much like them. Publicity laws usually prevent a person’s image or identity form being used for commercial purposes without their consent, but it can also extend to well-known voices as well. The suit, filed in federal District Court in Detroit, asks the court to prevent further distribution of the game and order the publisher to provide compensatory and punitive damages for an unspecified amount.
I’m not sure, but I would’ve thought Activision would have to get permission from an artist’s label before even using the song. And I have to ask, do The Romantics really have a signature sound? I’m just saying, even if the lead singer called me up randomly and sang “What I Like About You” straight to me, I’d still only think it was some weird person just singing that song.
Via Billboard
who the fuck are the romantics
no duh its supposed to sound like them. why would i want to play the game if it sounds nothing like the original artist. Sorry guys your fired because you did your job too well.
This is about “likeness”. Here’s an example:
When making a Comic Book adaption of a movie or TV series, the artists are usually restricted so that they cannot make the drawn characters resemble the ACTORS too closely (because that would infringe upon the rights of the actors themselves who need to protect their IMAGE and LIKENESS).
An example; in the late 1970’s, when Marvel Comics had drawn the characters within its adaptions of Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars too closely to the likeness of the ACTORS, they ran into trouble. Even though the likeness was only apparent on a few panels of the comics, it caused problems for the artists and Marvel, and warnings were issued. Sometimes the rights for “likeness” may be granted, but that’s apparently NOT what happened here.
That is only one example, and an old one at that. If activision wanted the ACTUAL “Romantics” (exact likeness and almost exact sound) then they would need to negotiate THAT arrangement with the group.
The song “What I Like about you” is one of the most SUCCESSFUL rock songs in the HISTORY of rock ‘n roll and a true Cinderella story (since it never charted in the top 40). The Romantics are a bunch of great, hard working musicians who have paid their dues 100 times over. They are not washed up, or poor by any means and this is not JUST about money, it’s about protecting your IMAGE/LIKENESS and how (and when) it is used.
This is a legitimate case regarding LIKENESS. Any actor or musician needs to protect their own LIKENESS and this is not the first time such a case has happened.
J. McDonald
“Romantics Fan”
If Weird Al made a parody that actually sold better than the original should he be sued?
This is just another case of stone cold jealousy. I’m sure if I wrote a song and someone else performed it better than me, I’d sue them…. Riiight.
Doesn’t matter if they win or not, this gets them negative publicity as far as I’m concerned. You can support them all you want, and that’s your right.
As big a Rush fan as I am, when they made a big deal out the Working Man tribute album a few years back, I had to put my Rush fanatacism aside and defend the artists who made that album. It had nothing to do with support of Rush or protection of their namesake. It had everything to do with the fact that the covers were really good. If they had been bad…
I’ll never understand the over-protectiveness of artistic works. If anything, as an artist, you should feel flattered if someone else reproduces your work in a better light. It’s not like it’s blatant plagarism here.
When it’s all said and done, I hope it was worth it for these guys. Because from this point forward anytime I hear one of their songs I will be reminded of how big a cry baby group they are.
Begin the snubbing…
I don’t know about the legality of sounding too much like the real thing.. but I do know two related bits of fact:
1) You don’t need permission from the record label, or publisher, or original artist to record and sell a cover of a song. The only thing you have to do is pay a royalty of about 10 cents per copy sold to the songwriter. They can complain all they want but 99.9% of the time there’s no issue.
2) A parody is a whole different thing from a cover. Parodies are legal and by definition not exact copies of the same thing, so while people have gotten upset at Weird Al over “unauthorized” parodies before, he has complied on at least 2 occasions and scrapped an already-recorded parody purely out of respect for the individual artists, not because he had any legal obligation.