And Something I Agree With Activision About…

While I’m very unhappy with some of Activision’s recent behavior, I thought it was only fair to point out something that I’m actually on the same page as them on.

A judge has denied The Romantic’s (singers of “What I Like About You”) request for an injunction against Activision to use their song in “Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s”.  What was their complaint?  That the cover (that they legally licensed) was too similar to The Romantic’s original version.

I have to say, when you sign over your song knowing that it’s going to be “covered”, you can no longer complain if it’s too similar unless you have a very specific agreement that gives you “final approval” or something to that effect over the cover.  I doubt that Activision, or the developers, would really want to deal with that kind of restriction when creating their covers, so it’s not surprising that this is not part of their agreement.

In any case, if you’re that easy to “cover” and imitate, maybe you should just be happy that you wrote a song that’s well-known and well played so that you actually can make a ton of money off of it, even when you’re not singing it.