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Guitar Hero Injunction Denied

By Chris Bennett, Tudor Carsten, Michael R. Coburn, Sarah Dale-Harris, Pablo Guzman, Danielle (Dani) Lemon, Chris Metcalfe and David Spratley

A US district court has denied an injunction application that would have stopped the sale of "Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80s". The application was brought by The Romantics, who sued Activision last month on the grounds that the cover version of "What I Like About You" in the game is too similar to the original (see our previous post here).

The injunction was denied in part because The Romantics had not shown a substantial likelihood of succeeding on the merits of the case (in other words, the judge felt that the claim likely won't be successful even if the full case is heard).

Since an injunction application is heard with limited evidence, and is decided on a specific injunction test rather than the full merits of the claim, the injunction decision does not necessarily reflect what will happen in the case as a whole. However, Activision's lawyers say that Activision will likely move to have the case dismissed on the basis of the injunction decision.

Coverage at Detroit Free Press.

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Full post as published by Video Game Law Blog on December 19, 2007 (boomark / email).