New Media Technologies Blog - Entry #8 Gibson's Lawsuits Over Copyright Infringements of Musical Rock'N Roll Games

Gibson Lawsuit against Harmonix

Now, perhaps I do not understand or follow all of the details behind Gibson's proposal/patent to design their own rock'n roll simulation game, but it seems to me that Gibson's idea or concept of plugging an actual guitar into a video game system or computer to play a musical video game is quite different from playing a plastic toy controller designed to mimic the process of playing a guitar. Seriously, when you think about it, the process of playing a game like Rock Band or Guitar Hero you hit a series of buttons and strum yet another button. This is quite different from holding actual strings against frets and strumming a series of various gauge wires. If all Gibson is claiming is that their idea of using a guitar to play a video game rock'n roll simulation is proprietary, they really should think again. Gibson doesn't own the rights to "Play a Guitar" so to speak, so why would they own the rights behind the idea of "Playing a Virtual Guitar"?

I don't know, perhaps I'm wrong, but to me this logic doesn't make any sense to me and for that reason if anything alone, I'll be cheering for Harmonix and hoping they come out on top.

I also thought I should add, not many Americans really know about the origins of guitar music video games, but unfortunately for all of the companies arguing over who came out with the process first, the real origins of guitar themed music video games stem from the Japanese based Konami music franchise known as Bemani, with their Guitar Freaks series which was sold exclusively in Japan as early as 1999 and similar Guitar themed game, Gitaroo Man, developed by Koei in 2001.

Both these game franchises arrived many years earlier than Guitar Hero, Rock Band or whatever Gibson is or was planning on cooking up. And just for the record, if the issue is regarding the idea or process behind having multiple, different video game musical instrument controllers playing in sync with each other to play a performance, Konami's Bemani group has them beat on that as well. As with Bemani's musical series Guitar Freaks, Dance Dance Revolution, Karaoke Revolution, Beatmania, Drummania, Keyboardmania and Pop'n Music, many of these game controllers can be hooked up together to play songs as a live performance with multiple players.