The Romantics sue over 'virtually indistinguishable' cover in Guitar Hero '80s
What I like about you, is you really know how to sue. The Romantics are suing Activision, Harmonix, and Red Octane over their song "What I like About You" in Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the '80s because -- and try not to laugh -- the cover of their song sounds too much like them! The Romantics want to halt the sale of the game (their lawyers use the fancy term "enjoin") and want accounting of all profits from the game, along with unspecified "compensatory and punitive" damages. That's totally tubular dude!
The suit alleges that the cover of their song used in the game is "virtually indistinguishable from the authentic version" and therefore would confuse the consumer. Ironically, if said consumer heard the song on the game and liked it, the version they would 99.9% be purchasing is The Romantics original version -- as cover artist "Wavegroup Sound" probably won't be found in the local HMV or on iTunes. We don't know the real technicalities of an issue such as this, but we're pretty damn sure that all corporations involved in the production of the title made sure to get the license to use it. So, yeah, um, dear rhythm game developers, for fear of getting sued, please make sure all future covers you do for songs are really, really, bad.
Update: Heh, what do you know, Wavegroup's version is on iTunes. Now nobody will buy The Romantics version. Doomed, they're doomed we says. Mwahahahaha.
[Thanks, Qkthr]
