Kurt Cobain

Activision has responded to Courtney Love’s remarks with the claim that they received proper permission to use Kurt Cobain’s likeness in Guitar Hero 5.

Activision said: “Guitar Hero secured the necessary licensing rights from the Cobain estate in a written agreement signed by Courtney Love to use Kurt Cobain’s likeness as a fully playable character in Guitar Hero 5.”

Meanwhile, former Nirvana members, Novoselic and Grohl both support Courtney and have expressed their disapproval of Cobain’s in-game appearance.

According to Kotaku Novoselic and Grohl have released a joint statement calling for Activision to prevent the Cobain avatar from playing songs from other artists.

“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,” they said. “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.”