Guitar Hero suit settled

RedOctane, Activision, and The Ant Commandos bury the hatchet on legal dispute; peripheral manufacturer will continue to offer its own guitar controllers.

In August, RedOctane and parent company Activision sued The Ant Commandos, accusing the peripheral purveyor of copyright infringement, false advertising, and more in connection with the company's unlicensed Guitar Hero controllers. The Ant Commandos quickly countersued, claiming that RedOctane swiped the official Guitar Hero peripheral's design from its parent company's "Magical Guitar" controller, released years earlier for Konami's Guitar Freaks line of games.

In late October, the companies told the judge in the case that they were expecting to reach a settlement on the dispute within 10 days. It took a bit longer than that, but earlier this month the parties told the judge that they hashed out their differences and finally reached a settlement. The judge officially dismissed the case yesterday.

A representative of The Ant Commandos told GameSpot that the details of the settlement could not be revealed but did confirm that the company's products would continue to be distributed. Representatives for Activision could not be reached for comment.

101 Comments

  • masterofTS

    Posted Jan 6, 2007 10:11 pm PT

    I have DDR, Singstar and Guitar Hero and I think it would be awesome to play atleast 2 at the same time. Guitar Hero is the best music game of all time by the way.

  • badlands27

    Posted Jan 5, 2007 6:33 am PT

    I agree, I was surprised at how fun this game really is!

  • Lokirth_Typhoon

    Posted Jan 4, 2007 9:21 am PT

    Tuba Hero.

    'Nuff said.

  • Chief_Kuuni

    Posted Jan 2, 2007 4:01 pm PT

    awesome

  • mariothedoc

    Posted Jan 1, 2007 6:45 pm PT

    well..... i dont care, there should be a drum hero game that could link with guitar hero, that would be AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Cormyre_

    Posted Jan 1, 2007 2:38 pm PT

    Not like T.A.C.'s wireless guitar can be used on GH2 anyway... blah

  • Trogeton

    Posted Dec 31, 2006 5:34 pm PT

    Cool, but I this does not too much matter... I so far dont know anyone that owns or plans to own this game

  • datniccah187

    Posted Dec 31, 2006 12:02 pm PT

    I been play'n a lil guitar hero lately. Its was, much to my suprise, very good.

  • ps2alltheway

    Posted Dec 29, 2006 9:20 pm PT

    Who cares!

  • KrazyBroly

    Posted Dec 29, 2006 2:58 pm PT

    @ Zoomer30:
    http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/Music/9806/08/tonys.cnn/link.rosie.odonnell.jpg

    Took me about 3 seconds on google, find some better analogies.

  • EnozmeH

    Posted Dec 29, 2006 12:54 pm PT

    hmmm... i don'e even like this game... really... i don't!

  • none17256375947

    Posted Dec 28, 2006 11:30 am PT

    ALL IN GOOD HUMOR!

    "The only reason Sony does not have it is that they did not want to pay royalties, if they had to do that the 60GB model would have cost about 700-800 bucks I am betting. "

    you;re prob right, they would at least have to pay $200 PER SYSTEM in royalties because of the rumble in the controler...


    "Jeez the ps3 controller having no rumble is Microsofts fault for sueing them because Microsoft said they were the ones that invented rumble being greedy a holes that they are"

    ok...



    "The original Warhawk game, made a couple of years ago had a motion sensing controller, but wait.... that controller also had rumble features built into it.

    So yeah, the PS3 controller could of rumble features in it without screwing up the motion sensor.""

    you should check out this new thing, it's like barely known of but its called the Nintendo Wii remote...

    and this was a topic about GH lol =)

  • puppiemaster

    Posted Dec 28, 2006 4:10 am PT

    Lets have a Drum Hero game, should please parents with 7 year olds

  • NathanHawkins

    Posted Dec 25, 2006 11:40 pm PT

    Sounds as though Activision might have come out on the losing side of this one, at least figured their case wasn't well founded.

  • rudyHG

    Posted Dec 25, 2006 9:37 pm PT

    Ok, let's forget about this lawsuit crap and can we just start working on some cross-platform GH please?

  • Mrpowers35

    Posted Dec 25, 2006 6:56 pm PT

    How stupid companies can be. I wish they were smarter.

  • sk8jim

    Posted Dec 25, 2006 4:47 pm PT

    ok

  • wild_world_girl

    Posted Dec 24, 2006 5:30 pm PT

    rcguy_24:

    "Jeez the ps3 controller having no rumble is Microsofts fault for sueing them because Microsoft said they were the ones that invented rumble being greedy a holes that they are"

    You win the award for the least informed post of the day.

  • jak_x_fan

    Posted Dec 24, 2006 7:30 am PT

    cool

  • niels200683

    Posted Dec 24, 2006 5:43 am PT

    "soundbuoy: Nintendo and M$ settled out of court and paid up. Sony, being the greedy a holes that they are, just stopped using rumble.
    Get yr facts straight before you slag people off, guy."

    I never heard anything about Nintendo being sued by Immersion,
    or settling out of court, since Nintendo's rumble capabilities are actually an integrated 'rumble pack' - debuted as a peripheral for N64,
    which is, in the way it works, quite a different technique compared to the dual shock method of vibration.

    It just amazes me that no **** manufacturer has come up with the idea to sue any manufacturer of vibrating joysticks yet...

  • emeraldqueen

    Posted Dec 24, 2006 3:47 am PT

    What I have only read in the last couple of news about the consoles and the games it's all about a suing war all the time. Get over it, those companies have lots of money.

  • DGFreak

    Posted Dec 24, 2006 1:12 am PT

    The_Consequence: Copyrights last for 150 years... it's not likely that they "expired;" Maybe you were thinking of a patent, which expires after 13. Many people feel that copyrights should work the same way.

    soundbuoy: That comany was called Immersion Corp. I dunno where rc_guy24 got the idea that Microsoft did it from.

  • ares_infernus

    Posted Dec 24, 2006 12:46 am PT

    huh!

  • soundbuoy

    Posted Dec 23, 2006 9:18 pm PT

    rc_guy24 "Jeez the ps3 controller having no rumble is Microsofts fault for sueing them because Microsoft said they were the ones that invented rumble being greedy a holes that they are"

    Umm.. Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony were all sued by the company that claimed they invented rumble. Nintendo and M$ settled out of court and paid up. Sony, being the greedy a holes that they are, just stopped using rumble.
    Get yr facts straight before you slag people off, guy.

  • aRE-you-AFraid

    Posted Dec 23, 2006 8:42 pm PT

    i really don't care

  • xtremeg4m3r

    Posted Dec 23, 2006 7:56 pm PT

    gh2 is kind of dissapointing .

  • rc_guy24

    Posted Dec 23, 2006 6:32 pm PT

    Jeez the ps3 controller having no rumble is Microsofts fault for sueing them because Microsoft said they were the ones that invented rumble being greedy a holes that they are

  • ZombieDr

    Posted Dec 23, 2006 3:18 pm PT

    man I seriously hate this cause someone sues someone for something they stole cause they knew if they didn't they'd get caught

  • Zoomer30

    Posted Dec 23, 2006 11:37 am PT

    The only reason Sony does not have it is that they did not want to pay royalties, if they had to do that the 60GB model would have cost about 700-800 bucks I am betting.

  • Zoomer30

    Posted Dec 23, 2006 11:21 am PT

    Does this suprise anyone? Ethics in the software/hardware business is about as easy to find as a photo of Rosie O Donnel where she has her mouth shut. Takes some big ones to SUE someone for something you stole from them in the first place....jeez!

    If Xerox had any brains they would have sued Apple and Microsoft

  • deku-shrub

    Posted Dec 23, 2006 10:23 am PT

    wow

  • sainraja

    Posted Dec 23, 2006 9:02 am PT

    "It doesnt matter.

    The original Warhawk game, made a couple of years ago had a motion sensing controller, but wait.... that controller also had rumble features built into it.

    So yeah, the PS3 controller could of rumble features in it without screwing up the motion sensor."

    The reason Sony couldn't do it is because they were trying to create rumble technology different than the one used in Dualshock which they got sued for.

  • smas1983

    Posted Dec 23, 2006 8:57 am PT

    It doesnt matter.

    The original Warhawk game, made a couple of years ago had a motion sensing controller, but wait.... that controller also had rumble features built into it.

    So yeah, the PS3 controller could of rumble features in it without screwing up the motion sensor.

  • stunts1337

    Posted Dec 23, 2006 2:51 am PT

    "The Guitar Freaks games weren't too good, and they came out a while back, so I wouldn't be surprised if their copyright expired."

    copyrighting something lasts 70 years or something after your death. so no...

  • mrklorox

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 11:50 pm PT

    hackslash
    "Six Axis is motion detector, Wii is not. Wii sense the controllers position, which vibration wont mess up, Sixaxis however has sensors inside the controller."

    No, VladimirCrow was correct. The Wii NUNCHAKU can only sense orientation and accelleration, and does not contain a rumble function because of this.

  • michelle_moraes

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 5:45 pm PT

    Heh a lot of companies suing these days!

  • hackslash

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 5:33 pm PT

    VladimirCrow
    Couldn't Sony have done that? Now we don't have rumble thanks to their cheap asses, and don't bring the whole Six axes crap, since the Wii has both things.


    Six Axis is motion detector, Wii is not. Wii sense the controllers position, which vibration wont mess up, Sixaxis however has sensors inside the controller.

  • AL13NK1LL3R

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 5:01 pm PT

    wait what.. what their blahin about.. this is soo stupid... this is like the most pointless case ever

  • VladimirCrow

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 4:52 pm PT

    Couldn't Sony have done that? Now we don't have rumble thanks to their cheap asses, and don't bring the whole Six axes crap, since the Wii has both things.

  • RaiKageRyu

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 4:19 pm PT

    No case.

  • princeofgames90

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 2:09 pm PT

    guitar hero 2 is cool man if there is a third part

  • The_Consequence

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 1:47 pm PT

    The Guitar Freaks games weren't too good, and they came out a while back, so I wouldn't be surprised if their copyright expired.

  • Impostorzim

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 12:22 pm PT

    Law suits are so retarded. Everyone does them now, and now they've become just opportunities for people to make as much money as they can. Like the incident that happened with the Wii remote's trigger button. I am so sure that Nintendo stole the idea from that stupid program they use for slideshows (sarcasm all the way there)

  • UnstopppableSol

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 12:13 pm PT

    i bought one of those wireless guitarmania controls, and it wasnt even compatible with GH2. I had to bring it back and exchange it for gh1's control and not go wireless.

  • Calltheherd

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 11:40 am PT

    walmart also sells e'm
    (the controllers fallen was talking bout)

  • FallenOneX

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 10:21 am PT

    In other wordsn Red Octane and Activision realized that the countersuit had more merit than their lawyers had perviosly told them. While the whole thing was a mess of BS, I'm glad it all worked out to some degree. In other news, has anyone seen those new "motion sensing" PS2 controllers? They're from a third party, and I'm wondering who's going to sue them first. Target sells them, I put them out on a pull last night.

  • OfficialBed

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 9:35 am PT

    neato...finally over

  • PoderOmega

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 9:07 am PT

    Sony did "bury the hatchet" with the company that sued them for the rumble feature. But that includes Sony having to pay royalties on any new controllers they sell, and I am sure this is real reason Sony took out the rumble. Not to make the controller "lighter". Corporate propaganda is just insulting, no one buys it except stock holders apparently.

  • Riorio99

    Posted Dec 22, 2006 8:36 am PT

    There are 3rd party normal controller, 3rd party lightguns, third party dancemats, ect, why not Guitars?

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