User-Made Metallica, White Stripes Songs Slipping Through 'Guitar Hero' Loophole
Last week, Patrick Klepek noted that a slew of video game songs were popping up on "Guitar Hero"'s music-sharing service, GHTunes.
Though he saw that some of the "Mario," "Zelda" and other game-inspired melodies were swiftly removed, I found a few very famous, non-gaming music in the service, and not all of it has been yanked. For instance... Last week, I downloaded a song called "ST Jimmy GreenDay," which was clearly the song "St. Jimmy" from Green Day's album American Idiot. I also got "Judith Cover," which is the hit song "Judith" from A Perfect Circle and "That Thing You Do," performed by a fictional band in the eponymous movie starring Tom Hanks.
When I looked at GHTunes this morning, I couldn't find "Judith Cover" or "That Thing You Do," but "ST Jimmy GreenDay" was still listed as #56 on the "All Time Best" list. There were also new downloads I noticed, such as songs from Metallica ("Master of Puppets"), Iron Maiden ("Number of the Beast"), Slayer ("Raining Blood"), Red Hot Chili Peppers ("Californication") and The White Stripes ("Seven Nation Army").
I previewed the songs to make sure they weren't just naming coincidences; they weren't. Some GHTunes creators even went as far as to make logos that reflected the artist they were paying homage to. I could also download themes from "Star Wars" and James Bond, as well as more Nintendo tunes dubbed "Mario Madness" and "Twilight Princess."
While it seems like Activision might be a bit lax on policing user-created songs, the company doesn't have to do anything. The game's Terms of Use, shown below, states that the company "may or may not monitor the Service," "assumes no responsibility or obligation to modify" the content or conduct of its users, and "has no control" over the content.
This may be fine for now, but if the company is going to start charging a subscription fee for players wanting to download user-created songs from its service, Activision will have to change its tune (sorry) on its policies.
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