Unforgiven: Metallica sues Red Octane, Activision, and Harmonix *UPDATE*
Originally posted on August 14, 2007 at 02:20PM
Harmonix confirmed back in July that the legendary rock band Metallica is coming to Rock Band (PS3 and Xbox 360). Also earlier this month both Red Octane and Activision came up with a similar announcement for Guitar Hero III that is scheduled to be released on Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 platforms.
But what’s this? We just got word that Metallica is currently suing the above mentioned companies for copyright infringement. According to the band’s lawyer, what the three companies is planning to do is actually under the “licensed music to player” system otherwise known as LM2P network.
Harmonix wasn’t able to provide an initial statement regarding the matter but the counsel for Red Octane and Activision had this to say:
Our company paid a licensing fee to feature the track ‘One’ by Metallica in Guitar Hero III. We don’t understand why Metallica would turn around and sue us, unless they’ve gone from insane to completely bats*** insane since 2001, but we’re confident that the law and our contracts will be enough to have this thrown out.
Metallica’s counsel, on the other hand, explained that the band is fearful that album sales will decline because consumers can easily get hold of their songs just by purchasing video game titles. The lawyer added, “The band learned its lesson the hard way with file sharing in the late 90s. This time they want to do a pre-emptive strike before the music gets out there”.
UPDATE: Over on the Harmonix’s forum boards, HMXSean, one of the community forum leaders, chimed in with an important announcement, stating that the article originally written by Daily Gaming is false.
According to the forum post, HMXSean said, “In no way is this true. It is well written satire but it is very much satire.”
HMXSean has since closed the forum post, disallowing comments. You can, however, read about it at the forum link we have below.
Originally posted on August 14, 2007 at 02:20PM
Harmonix confirmed back in July that the legendary rock band Metallica is coming to Rock Band (PS3 and Xbox 360). Also earlier this month both Red Octane and Activision came up with a similar announcement for Guitar Hero III that is scheduled to be released on Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 platforms.
But what’s this? We just got word that Metallica is currently suing the above mentioned companies for copyright infringement. According to the band’s lawyer, what the three companies is planning to do is actually under the “licensed music to player” system otherwise known as LM2P network.
Harmonix wasn’t able to provide an initial statement regarding the matter but the counsel for Red Octane and Activision had this to say:
Our company paid a licensing fee to feature the track ‘One’ by Metallica in Guitar Hero III. We don’t understand why Metallica would turn around and sue us, unless they’ve gone from insane to completely bats*** insane since 2001, but we’re confident that the law and our contracts will be enough to have this thrown out.
Metallica’s counsel, on the other hand, explained that the band is fearful that album sales will decline because consumers can easily get hold of their songs just by purchasing video game titles. The lawyer added, “The band learned its lesson the hard way with file sharing in the late 90s. This time they want to do a pre-emptive strike before the music gets out there”.
UPDATE: Over on the Harmonix’s forum boards, HMXSean, one of the community forum leaders, chimed in with an important announcement, stating that the article originally written by Daily Gaming is false.
According to the forum post, HMXSean said, “In no way is this true. It is well written satire but it is very much satire.”
HMXSean has since closed the forum post, disallowing comments. You can, however, read about it at the forum link we have below.
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