Don't blame Nirvana, blame Courtney

This video of Kurt Cobain singing Bon Jovi, etc. in the Guitar Hero universe with a skeleton playing drums has been making the rounds for a couple of weeks to the shock and horror of Nirvana fans everywhere. Today, Foo Fighters' publicist Steve Martin sent me a press release giving Activision and the former Nirvana members' explanation of how this was allowed to happen. All parties put the blame on Courtney Love.* The press release text follows:

Activision is responding to queries regarding the usage of Kurt Cobain's likeness in Guitar Hero 5 with the following statement "Guitar Hero secured the necessary licensing rights from the Cobain estate in a written agreement signed by Courtney Love to use Kurt Cobain's likeness as a fully playable character in Guitar Hero® 5."

Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, the two surviving members of Nirvana, have no say whatsoever in the usage of Kurt Cobain's likeness.

*The former Nirvana members and Activision were responding to tweets from Courtney Love which indicated that she did not approve Cobain's likeness for the game and was considering a lawsuit.
UPDATE: Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl's have issued a statement, via publicist Nasty Little Man, on the Guitar Hero matter.
"We want people to know that we are dismayed and very disappointed in the way a facsimile of Kurt is used in the Guitar Hero game. The name and likeness of Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate - we have no control whatsoever in that area.

While we were aware of Kurt's image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn't know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in "re-locking" Kurt's character so that this won't continue in the future.

It's hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists' music alongside cartoon characters. Kurt Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world.  We feel he deserves better."