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Updating a previous item: Courtney Love claims she didn't agree to allow Kurt's likeness to be playable in Guitar Hero 5, Activision says otherwise. Grohl and Novoselic also respond.

Published Sep 11 2009, 11:48 AM by Ryan Stewart

By now you've likely seen the video of the late Kurt Cobain's likeness being used as a playable avatar in Guitar Hero 5 (and playing mostly songs the real Cobain would have found appalling). Most people, including the author of that video that circulated the internet so quickly, suspected Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, was responsible for it somehow.

Now, according to her twitter feed (click at your own risk), Love is claiming that she had nothing to do with it and is hinting that a lawsuit is forthcoming.

FOR THE RECORD I DID NOT APPROVE KURTS AVATAR FOR GUYITARHERO5. i think Kurt would despise this game alone let alone this avatar

There's a lot more in the feed about all of this, but it's a little tough to decipher. Activision, who owns Neversoft, makers of Guitar Hero since 2007, have responded already to say, in brief, "actually, Courtney, you did." Love has now said that her lawyers will respond soon, so we haven't heard the end of this. (Actually, while I was writing this, Love's attorneys made their official statement).

Meanwhile, the other two surviving members of Nirvana, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, have also weighed in to say they had nothing to do with Cobain's presence in the game, and that they definitely do not approve of it:

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.

Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl

For the record, several Foo Fighters songs have appeared in Guitar Hero games over the years.

As for gamers themselves? We won't know until the NPD numbers come in, but we're just going to guess that most people are too busy hanging out at Abbey Road Studios to notice.

Filed Under: Guitar Hero, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Courtney Love, poor taste

Nirvana

There are numerous artists using the Nirvana name on Last.fm, 8 are listed in order of prominence: 1) Nirvana was a popular and highly influential...

Foo Fighters

Foo Fighters are an American alternative rock/post-grunge band formed by singer/guitarist Dave Grohl in 1995 in Seattle, USA. Grohl formed the group as a one-man...

Courtney Love