Guitar Hero World Tour Won't Allow Copyright Infringement

1Up did an interview with two of the developers for Guitar Hero: World Tour about the process of creating the game. One of the interesting things they mention is that they won't be putting up with people who use the song creation tools to make covers of existing songs. "We'll be actively monitoring the site. And, obviously, if the copyright holder complains, Activision will pull it down immediately. We can't condone people putting up covers of music. It's really there for original content." We discussed the creation tools themselves recently. Since then, Activision has announced that they'll be including a MIDI sequencer to assist with making your own tunes.

Go Old-School

[Jabbrwokk]

Lame. Companies need to understand that fan-made content extends product life and popularity, and keeps their product selling off the shelves.

Guess the kids are going to have to be old-school guitar heroes, playing their real guitars along to illegally downloaded MP3s of their favourite songs. Maybe they'll even develop real talents of their own, instead of making burned-out has-been rock star geezers [rollingstones.com] even richer.

Who Cares?

[morari]

The music creator doesn't even allow for any sort of vocalizing. That instantly makes it pretty darn lame, and inherently limited/shallow.

Too far?

[sleeponthemic]

I'm not one of those people who say "go buy a real guitar" but I have to say, when you're at the point where you're midi sequencing stuff to play in guitar hero, you're also at the point where you're ready to start looking into making your own music. Particularly when you're restricted from emulating copyrighted songs.

Re:Who Cares?

[skam240]

Yeah, instrumentals are obviously huge based off your long list of (mostly) fringe artists with extremely popular instrumental songs. I can't turn on the radio without hearing instrumental after instrumental.

Wait, no. I can't remember the last time I heard an instrumental on the radio without tuning into a classical station. Now, I'm not saying a taste for instrumental rock (or any other instrumental music) is bad or anything but it is far from mainstream. Most people playing guitar hero are looking to play music with some relevancy to popular music.

Re:Go Old-School

[Anonymous Coward]

Most guitarists at least start out imitating what they've heard other people play. You need to learn how to play the instrument before you can start writing your own music on it.