Stupid. Thanks, Jeff for the video. It sounds similar but not really That similar. The singer tried to make the voice of the original, but doesn’t sound that much like it.

I like Vincent’s idea. That way the people that have those ****RARE!!!!!!**** copies with the Romantics song it will go for lord knows how much on ebay.

But seriously I think removing the song would be a good idea. Not only remove that song but teach them a lesson by NEVER offering to put their songs in any future music games. Music games are a hot item these days and nearly forgotten 80s should be thankful that people remember them well enough to want to keep their hits alive in any format. It is a known fact that most of the songs that used in Guitar Hero are covers. Just before the track starts look at the title it will ususally say “________ made famous by ________”. And for the few songs that are from the original artist don’t they say “_________ by_______”?

If The Romantics get there way they will set a pretty damning precedent. Imagine if all of a sudden bands could start suing other bands (original, cover, tribute, or whatever) because they sound the same. The music industry has not gotten as bad as the recording industry yet but if this goes down in favor of The Romantics that would be true for long.

The suit isn’t that frivolous if you look at it from an endorsement perspective. The Romantics can’t stop other people from making cover versions of their songs; all a band needs to do is pay a statutory royalty and they can play a song however they like. The problem is that if the cover version in Guitar Hero sounds too much like the original, then dopey kids who may not ever have heard of the Romantics will think it’s actually them singing the song and that the Romantics somehow wanted to be included in the game. It’s very well possible that the Romantics didn’t want to be involved with Guitar Hero, but since they can’t stop people from making covers, they simply took the cover band royalty and left it at that. Once the cover band impersonates the Romantics too closely and puts the song in the game, the Romantics have lost their ability to endorse or be involved with the commercial products it wants.

I remember seeing recently an article about how games like Guitar Hero lead to increased sales of the music included in the game, which means more money for any band lucky enough to have its songs included, but that’s not the point here. As a band (and I’d even argue as individuals with their own separate rights) they have the right to control, within certain bounds, how their names, likenesses, and sound are used by others to make money that doesn’t filter back to the band’s pockets. The extra album sales from being in the game is great for sure, but Activision is more or less saying “We’re not going to pay you to include your song, but we’ll pay less to have someone cover it so it sounds like you, so we get the song we want for the price we want. Don’t worry, people will go out and buy your cds, but we’ll keep all the money from the game.” That’s a raw deal.

And btw, pretty much all Activision has to do to make this go away is calculate how much they would have paid had they used the original song. Since it’s a hit game, that shouldn’t be that hard to do.

This is your typical “has been” band trying to get publicity once the show is over. Long since forgotten was the name of this band even though the song in question is still a tune that sparks nostalgia. 9 out of 10 people couldn’t tell you who wrote it. To the Romantics…Dont go away mad. Just go away.