Courtney Love: Bashes 'Guitar Hero'

Courtney Love: Bashes 'Guitar Hero'

Actress-singer Courtney Love used Twitter to rail against what she claimed was the unauthorized use of Kurt Cobain's likeness in the videogame Guitar Hero, going so far as to threaten a lawsuit.

But Activision, the maker of Guitar Hero, says the company is in possession of a signed agreement signed by Love that gave it the right to create a Cobain avatar. At this point who knows who is in the right, but what is certain is that Love--widowed when Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana, shot himself in 1995--didn't present a convincing case by issuing meandering, disjointed, highly caustic and barely readable Twitter posts.

Late Thursday evening, Love blocked public access to her Twitter account, courtneylover79.

Love's Twitter-tweak of Activision is a case study in why celebrities need publicists. In an age when stars can instantly communicate with huge audiences with no more equipment than a cellphone, a carefully cultivated image may be torn to pieces with a few ill-advised key strokes. Love's tweeting is an example of what can happen when someone famous, either in a fit of anger, despair or lunacy, addresses the Web without proper supervision.

"Have fun with your avatars you slimebags," the 45-year-old Love wrote in a Tweet posted early Thursday morning. "i rant? F*** off i have proof youve simply never bothred to look. so f***ing play your videogame.

"we have NOTHING to do with this," she said in another post as she denied involvement with the Cobain avatar, "it was presented to me and oi said 'show me a better avataR' TO DRAG MY HEELS., never did i intend on allowing GUITARHERO for me or for Kurt i am NOT yoko f***ing Ono no ofense to her, but i am a different person entirely and this is insane."

Love later acknowledged that she did sign some sort of agreement with Activision.

"I sisgned whats known as a (deal) memo under great pressure and i was pleasnat to work with? HA i wouldnt show up i made them change all sorts of s***t, and even then i had no intention of doing his btw we get NO money for this, travesty, Frances (her and Cobain's daughter) gets NO money for the rape."

From reading Love's tweets, what appears to have happened is Activision went to Love for permission to use Cobain's likeness. When she saw that Cobain's avatar not only can be programmed to perform Nirvana's music but also perform songs from Bon Jovi, Bush or Madonna, she became dissatisfied. She also began blasting Activision after rock critics and Nirvana fans began holding her responsible for the defiling of Cobain's memory.

Despite all her bluster, there may be little that Love can do about forcing Activision to make changes, at least from a legal standpoint says Mark Litvack, a well-known entertainment attorney at the law firm Reed Smith.

Litvack said that California does indeed protect a deceased person's likeness. A California statute commonly referred to as the "Fred Astaire law," named after the legendary dancer and movie star whose likeness was used without permission following his death, says that anyone using another person's likeness for commercial purposes without consent from them or their estate "shall be liable for any damages sustained by the person or persons injured."