Guitar Maker Gibson Sues Makers of Guitar Hero

The wildly popular video game “Guitar Hero” seems to be showing up quite frequently in the news these days, although this time, it’s not such good news for the game’s maker, Activision, Inc.
It appears that Gibson, Nashville-based makers of such classic guitars as the “Les Paul” are not pleased that their products, or perhaps the likeness of their products, that are being used to promote the game. Guitarist Slash, formerly of Guns N’ Roses and his use of a Les Paul guitar is cited by Gibson.
There’s no question that Activision is making a nice bundle of cash with “Guitar Hero.” With 14 million of them sold and more than $1 Billion generated from those sales, there’s bound to be trouble from other companies that feel like they deserve a cut of the action.
In addition to Activision, Gibson is suing some of the well-known sellers of the game, including Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, Kmart, Amazon, Gamestop and Toys-R-Us.
Makes me wonder if Fender will take a cue from Gibson and decide to go after the same companies, since I’d have to think that their world-famous Stratocaster and Telecaster guitars must be used by some of the rock stars featured in the “Guitar Hero” series.
In other news related to “Guitar Hero,” I stumbled onto a blog post on Wired.com where the author talks about a 9-year-old girl’s fondness for the game and how he wonders whether or not “Guitar Hero” is changing our culture.
He reports that the girl in question, who was once quite happy listening to Hanna Montana, is now more interested in 1970’s guitar rock, and that does not seem to be a problem for the girl’s father at all.
All fall right in line with both the girl’s father and the author of the blog in their preference for Aerosmith over Hanna Montana without hesitation, and hope that he’s onto something here. This is the kind of evolution in our culture I can get fully behind.
Well as far as Gibson goes do they really need anymore money think about it after you look at the price of there guitars. Besides wouldn’t it be easier for them to promote this than trying to sue, think how many people play the game and how many guitar players it would create. And what would be the first guitar they would look at Hmmmm, Gibson Les Paul, or and Explorer. Whats next Gibson going to sue Mel for having the same last name?
Yes, that’s a good point.
Games like “Guitar Hero” seem like they would only be good for companies like Gibson. More guitar players means more guitar sales for Gibson, so this whole lawsuit thing does seem a bit misguided.