Update: It appears the original report from dailygaming.net that set the gaming community aflame had no truth to it whatsoever. HMXSean, Harmonix’s community leader of the official Rock Band forums commented:
"In no way is this true. It is well written satire but it is very much satire."
This debunks any previously made claims that Metallica is indeed suing any of these gaming companies. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Original story: Metallica thinks its metal enough to sue companies left, right and center.
That’s right, Metallica has sued Harmonix, Activision, and Red Octane for including one of their songs in the upcoming Rock Band and Guitar Hero III. Keep in mind, these companies paid licensing fees to incorporate the music into their respective games. However, Metallica’s lawyers claim that they are actually infringing on copyright by using the "licensed music to player" (LM2P) system.
Harmonix has yet to issue a response to Metallica’s claims, though Activision and Red Octane have been quite blatant with theirs:
"Our company paid a licensing fee to feature the track ‘One’ by Metallica in Guitar Hero III. We don’t understand why Metallica would turn around and sue us, unless they’ve gone from insane to completely bats*** insane since 2001, but we’re confident that the law and our contracts will be enough to have this thrown out."
Metallica’s reason for beginning this campaign is quite simple – album sales. They feel that by releasing one song in a more than $60 videogame that people will have less reason to buy their albums. The lawyer concluded, "The band learned its lesson the hard way with file sharing in the late 90s. This time they want to do a preemptive strike before the music gets out there".
We’ll let you know how this debacle resolves.
Source: Daily Gaming