A Manhattan judge has cleared the way for a video game maker to continue a $100 million lawsuit against singer Beyonce.

The suit, originally filed in April, had been on hold pending whether the case should be thrown out, but without explanation, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos ruled the case for breach of contract by Gate Five LLC could move forward.

The New York Times Media Decoder blog has an interesting story about Michael O’Leary the senior executive vice president for global policy and external affairs of the Motion Picture Association of America. While the story is about toning down SOPA to address "legitimate concerns," the real story is something that opponents knew all along: the MPAA and friends are basically the authors of the bill.

Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and Sony Network Entertainment International announced that they will "fully restore" all Qriocity by day's end on June 9 in "all serviced territories, excluding Japan." That means that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services which were shut down on April 20 due to a massive security breach are available and working as they were prior to the incident.

SCE says that Video On Demand and Music Unlimited services powered by Qriocity are now "fully functional" on all compatible devices. PlayStation Network has been up for a few weeks in most territories, and last week SCE relaunched the PlayStation Store and gave users access to free games as a "thank you" for their patience.

An announcement related to the restoration of the remaining services on Qriocity in Japan will be made at a later date, said SCE.

The Associated Press is reporting that Tennessee lawmakers have passed a bill that makes it a crime to login into to another person's account to listen to songs or movies from services such as Netflix and Rhapsody. The law doesn't make a distinction between logging in with or without the account holder's permission either.

The bill only needs the governor's signature to become law. The AP reports that Gov. Bill Haslam is expected to sign the bill. As you can probably guess, the law was heavily pushed by the music industry in the state, looking for a new way to fight against illegal music sharing. 

While the bill was supposedly meant to target hackers and those that sell passwords of such services online, the bill's sponsor admits that it could be used to target those who use a friend's or relative's subscription.

Video Games Live will hold its 200th show during E3 in Los Angeles in early June. To celebrate this milestone organizers saying they are "pulling out all the stops" with some special performances from some of history's most popular games.

Lady Gaga and Zynga have inked a deal to transform the popular Facebook game FarmVille with various Gaga-isms. The deal is meant to promote the launch of Lady Gaga's latest album "Born this Way." Launching May 17, the promotion gives players the opportunity to unlock and listen to "little monsters" by playing GagaVille, a neighboring farm in FarmVille filled with unicorns, crystals and sheep on motorcycles. The full album also comes bundled as a free download with the purchase of a special Zynga $25 game card, available exclusively at Best Buy.

"I want to celebrate and share ‘Born This Way’ with my little monsters in a special way that’s never been done before," said Lady Gaga. "Zynga has created a magical place in FarmVille where my fans can come play, and be the first to listen to the album."

While the organizers of the Grammys might have eliminated well over 30 categories to streamline its awards this year, one category that remains is video games. Speaking to IndustryGamers, Bill Freimuth of The Recording Academy said that this is a first step in getting video games their own special category.

"I think this could be viewed as a first step in the direction of video games getting their own category," said Bill Freimuth of The Recording Academy to IndustryGamers. "Many people from the game community have been asking us to create a special category for games over the years, but the main reason we haven't is because we have received very few entries from game publishers."

Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka is auctioning off the guitar he used to write all the music for the game on in a bid to raise money for Play for Japan. According to eBay auction information, "the soul of Silent Hill" resides in the guitar, and there is a good chance that the "guitar is haunted." As silly as that sounds, the guitar is certainly an item worth owning because it is a piece of gaming history.

The complete lot consists of a Yamaha APX-15FM acoustic electric guitar, a Line 6 FB4, and a Line 6 POD. Yamaoka supposedly bought the guitar right before he started working on the first Silent Hill game and has used it for every game in the series since then. He also supposedly used it in a live performance of the Silent Hill music at the Video Games Live concerts.

Red Dead Redemption was the big winner at the Game Audio Network Guild (GANG) Awards at GDC in San Francisco last week, scooping up four awards in various categories including audio of the year, music of the year, best interactive score, and best dialogue. The game was nominated in ten different categories. The game also managed to sweep the GDC Awards last week.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 won Sound Design Of The Year and Best Use Of Multi-Channel Surround, while Bizarre Creations' last game, James Bond 007: Blood Stone, won Best Original Instrumental and Best Original Vocal.

A full list of all this year's winners are below:

The Los Angeles Times reports that Activision has lost its bid to get a lawsuit filed by ska-rockers No Doubt thrown out. A three-judge panel rejected the company's motion to throw out the 2009 lawsuit that alleged breach of contract.

The group contends that the breach occurred when Activision allowed players of Band Hero to use band members' avatars to "perform songs they did not write." The band said in its lawsuit that this "transformed No Doubt band members into a virtual karaoke circus act."

In its appeal of the suit, Activision said that it was simply a matter of "creative expression." The three-judge panel apparently disagreed.

No Doubt can now proceed with its lawsuit.

You can't make this kind of stuff up.. George "Geohot" Hotz has apparently created a rap about Sony trying to sue him for jailbreaking the PS3.

The sometimes explicit rap video appeared on his YouTube account explaining the lawsuit and challenging Sony (though I think that's all bluster for the sake of the rap, son).

Some of the lyrics are NSFW, but you can find them below, slightly edited for the sake of work and school safety :

You are probably aware of the fact that Activision said it plans to discontinue the Guitar Hero series of music games (and the latest True Crime game), and that it plans to cut 500 employees from its workforce as a result. The company also plans to close at least one studio, but won't publicly say which one is shutting down..

However, what you may not have known is that DLC for games such as DJ Hero and Guitar Hero will soon end as well.

According to a ShackNews report - citing an update to the "Guitar Hero Franchise Update FAQ" - the future of music game DLC is grim. In answer to the question "Are you still going to make new DLC for Guitar/DJ Hero?," the FAQ reads:

While details are paper thin at the moment, multiple media outlets (thanks ShackNews) are reporting that Harmonix has laid off 12 - 15 percent of its 250 strong staff. The company says that the downsizing is meant to bring the Rock Band maker in line with its current development plans.

Apparently those development plans don't involve a decent share of its full-time employees. The company is rumored to be working on a 3DS game, but other games being developed at the studio are unknown at this time.

Sources close to the company claim that these layoffs will not affect future projects or current downloadable content plans for Rock Band 3 or Dance Central.

This is troubling news, but not completely unexpected. Earlier this year the company regained its independence after being sold to a holding company for a mere $50.

More on this story as it becomes available.

Source: ShackNews

Motley Crue co-founder and bassist Nikki Sixx is playing a not-so-secret Santa to children in North Carolina being treated for cancer. On December 10 a 45-year old man robbed the hospice of its console systems and games. When Sixx heard about it he decided that he needed to find a way to help. A radio host now, Sixx reached out to Sony, EA, Disney, Nintendo, and Microsoft to help the children. He also talked about it on his radio program.

Showing that they have souls, all of the companies donated games for the children and replacement consoles. While this might seem like a small thing to you or I, it's a big deal to children who need a distraction when going through the agonies of cancer treatment and recovery.

On a related note, Providence Division Police Department have captured the man that stole the items. The 45-year-old Charles Hinton was taken into custody for the crime on December 18th.

On the heels of a lawsuit by ex-Harmonix shareholders against Viacom, the media giant has unloaded the company on Harmonix-SBE Holdings LLC, an affiliate of investment firm Columbus Nova, LLC. The company had said in November that it planned to sell Harmonix. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed at press time.

Obviously, Harmonix-SBE Holdings LLC is a holding company of some sort, but details on who has an interest in the company besides the investment firm is unknown at this point. Some have reported that Harmonix holds the controlling interest, but that has not been confirmed beyond a vague statement below. A post by Harmonix's John Drake on Rockband.com would lead one to believe that the company has a controlling interest (emphasis ours, not theirs, in the statement below):

Norwegian author Anne B. Ragde is a staunch advocate of intellectual property rights. As an author, that stance is not very surprising, considering that she makes her living off people paying for the things she writes. She has made her share of strong statements about the subject of piracy too, as highlighted in this excellent story from The Escapist:

"Piracy scares the hell out of me. I do not know what to say. I lose sleep at night over it," she said in an interview with the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv. "I have figured out that I've lost half a million kroner ($72,500) on piracy of my books, maybe more."

Trade groups including the Recording Industry Association of America, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and the Motion Picture Association of America say that currently copyright law gives too many excuses to service providers to do nothing about copyright protection. The statement is part of a response to a Notice of Information on copyright policy issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce. A Notice of Information is a request for information from interested parties and anyone else that wants to make comments about a particular issue. That request garnered responses from nine trade groups.

Indie musician Dan Bull isn’t afraid to take on politicians, fellow musicians or difficult subjects (such as file sharing and copyright). His latest music video, set the to the strains of Jay-Z’s Death of Auto-Tune, is entitled Death of ACTA, referring, of course, to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

Full lyrics to the song, featuring lines such as “I'm just a citizen that's teaching you a lesson,
for restricting my freedom of expression, Yes, and deep packet inspection? squeeze that up your rectum, If your postman did that to you you'd be having him sectioned,” can be viewed on TechDirt.

According to Politico’s Morning Tech blog, The RIAA, SoundExchange, BMI, The Recording Academy and nine other music groups have sent a letter to Eric Schmidt (Google's CEO) asking for more clarification on what it considers "lawful and unlawful activity on the Web." The question relates to Google and Verizon's proposals to the government on Net Neutrality which was released last week.

In a letter sent to Google yesterday, the groups asked for a more in-depth definition of activity, especially as it relates to "content rights." Here's an excerpt:

The always interesting VICE has an interview up with Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) President Cary Sherman, in which the head of the oft-vilified organization attempts to put a spin on the RIAA’s ever-so-slightly more friendly public face, as it switches from harassing end users to focusing more on ISPs.

In a snappy introduction it was noted that Sherman “is often seen as the face man for an oppressive totalitarian behemoth that can potentially throw you in the slammer and/or fine you into a horrid existence for illegally downloading shining examples of popular culture like “California Gurls” by Katy Perry featuring Snoop Dogg.”

In the piece, entitled Downloading Some Bullshit, Sherman answered a series of questions to the best of his ability.

Some Highlights:

A trade group representing the music industry in the United Kingdom wants internet service providers in the region to pay a fee to combat piracy. The group, PRS for Music, represents around 65,000 songwriters and publishers and is also comprised of another group - the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society.

The group proposes that ISPs either combat unlicensed media files on their networks or pay a fee to blanket license copyrighted material and offer it to its users. In other words, copyright enforcement becomes the job of ISPs. The organization also suggests an alternative where ISPs could be charged for "blanket licenses" so that they can "determine for themselves how best to capture the raw value of media on networks."

On July 31 Public Television Stations around the country will air Video Games Live, the popular concert series that combines classical music scores with tantalizing multimedia presentations. The 90-minute TV special to air on PBS stations will feature orchestrated performances of songs from a wide array of popular videogames such as Halo, Super Mario Bros. and more. Be sure to check your local TV listings for airtimes.

For more info on VGL, check out www.videogameslive.com

Source: Game | Life

Jason/Jace Hall has had a long and varied career centered in interactive entertainment, but he’s found yet another new career to try out—recording star.

Hall is putting out an EP entitled Video Games Aren’t Bad For Ya, which as you might imagine, will attempt to put games in a positive light. The EP’s first single is called I Play W.O.W., an unapologetic ode to playing the massively multiplayer online game.

Hall's take on game critics:

When you are told that you are being lazy, or wasting your time, or being anti social – when in fact you have just spent 22 hours working VERY hard with a GROUP of people accomplishing extremely difficult tasks – you want to tell the uninformed person accosting you to F** OFF!

While the song has a certain Weird Al quality to it, it’s all in fun, and Hall is a giant of a man, so we’ll reserve any further judgment. Just go listen to/download a clean version of the song here. Clean and explicit versions are available on iTunes for 99 cents each.

Hall was a co-founder and CEO of Monolith Productions before moving on to become Senior Vice President of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Now he is an Executive Producer of the ABC television show V: The Series and star of the Jace Hall Show.

Video game blogs and message boards have been debating the appropriateness of Kurt Cobain’s posthumous inclusion as a playable character in the recently released Guitar Hero 5.  Some think it’s a welcome tribute, others find it a bit creepy if not outright distasteful.

But what does Cobain’s widow Courtney Love think?  Well, one needs look no further than her Twitter account:

For the record this Guitar Hero [expletive] is breach of contract on a Bullys part and there will be a proper addressing of this and retraction. WE are going to sue the [expletive] out of Activision we being the Trust the Estate the LLC the various LLCs Cobain Enterprises.

While Love’s main gripe seems to be the appearance of Cobain’s character model and a feature that allows it to perform other artist’s songs, Activision Vice President Tim Riley told The Guardian that she was very cooperative in the creation of the game:

Courtney supplied us with photos and videos. She picked the wardrobe and hairstyle, which turned out to be the 'Teen Spirit' look, then we went back and forth over changes – some subtle, some not so subtle.

Love, for her part, doesn’t seem to agree:

Activision is fulllo f sh*t... i never intended to APPROVE this sh*t, they are doing a recall you can be sure of that… wait til you see what my lovely lawyer has cooked up, i never ever signed off on this.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that surviving Nirvana members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl are also unhappy with the use of Cobain’s likeness:

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.

Activision defended itself in a statement released Thursday, saying that it “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.”

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Senior Correspondent Andrew Eisen…

With 84 bids down and seven days of auctioning left as I write this, a limited edition Xbox 360 which celebrates the release of The Beatles Rock Band is selling for $7,400 on Ebay.

The sale of the beautifully customized console will benefit Doctors Without Borders. From the auction listing:

Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison personally selected the charity as the beneficiary of these proceeds.

Kotaku reports that the charitable auction is the first in a series.

If the console auction is too rich for your blood, purchasing the DLC bonus track All You Need is Love on Xbox Live (about $2) will help out Doctors Without Borders as well. All proceeds go to the charity an purchasers will be entered into a context to win one of the limited edition consoles as well as a
Rickenbacker 325 replica guitar controller.
 

In a recent, highly-publicized court decision, music industry lobbying group the RIAA won an eye-popping $1.92 million verdict against Jammie Thomas-Rasset (left) of Minnesota. That works out to $80,000 per song for each of the 24 tunes that the 32-year-old mother of four was accused of sharing.

How might such a case work out for someone accused of file-sharing video games?

Not well, according to gamer/attorney Mark Methenitis. In his Law of the Game column on Joystiq

If we assume [the Thomas-Rasset verdict] is allowed to stand, the possible implication is that the individual works that comprise the greater work that is a video game could be each pursued individually. So, for example, if you pirate a copy of Guitar Hero 4, you're not only liable for the piracy of the game, but also the piracy of the 86 included music tracks. So, keeping the value at $80,000 per work, your total bill would be $6.96 million. That's only 116,000 times the $60 retail value of the game...

 

It seems likely that a better balance will need to be struck... Is the solution to make small time, individual piracy the speeding ticket of the 21st century, punished with a stinging slap on the wrist when caught? Perhaps...

As for Jammie Thomas-Rasset, her comment on the verdict was, "Good luck getting it from me." Meanwhile, the RIAA has filed some 30,000 similar lawsuits around the United States.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) did a little bragging on Guitar Hero at a town hall meeting  in Arlington on Monday night.

Patrick, who lobbied game publishers to relocate to Massachusetts during a West Coast junket in February, was enthusiastic about the state's economic prospects during his talk with citizens, according to Wicked Local Arlington:

This is not your father’s [Route] 128. You know that [video game] ‘Guitar Hero’? That was invented here. It was built here.

Route 128 is well-known as a technology corridor in Massachusetts. Guitar Hero creator Harmonix is based in Cambridge.

In April the United States was stunned by the news of a shooting rampage at the offices of the American Civic Association in Binghampton, New York. During the horrific incident 41-year-old Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Wong killed 13 people and wounded several more before turning his weapon on himself.

Central New York station News 10 reports that children at a local middle school held a Rock Band tournament last Friday to benefit two children who lost both parents in the ACA shooting. The children of victims Marc and Marie Bernard will attend the Maine-Endwell Middle School in the fall. Tom Burkhardt, who organized the fundraiser told News 10:

We learned about these two children that lost both their parents and knew that they were gonna be coming to our school next year. And basically, the teachers and the staff wanted to do something, we were wondering what we could do, and we thought of this.

Local businesses donated prizes for the tournament.

While some critics maintain that there is very little connection between playing a real guitar and tapping out note combos on Rock Band or Guitar Hero, a Pennsylvania music instructor would disagree.

The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat interviewed guitar teacher Bo Moore, who claims to have seen a 35% increase in new students over the last two years:

A lot of kids have been getting into [guitar lessons] because of games, especially ‘Guitar Hero. Kids who might never have become interested in learning to play the guitar are now coming to us... The game is a completely different concept from playing a real guitar, but it does help with dexterity in their fingers.

Kids are coming to me wanting to learn to play, which is wonderful... It’s nice that bands like Foghat, the Steve Miller Band and the Rolling Stones are cool again. Kids come here focused and with a game plan.

For guitar players, it’s all about songs like ‘Smoke on the Water’ and ‘Sweet Home Alabama...’ And what’s great about some of those power chords – the garage rock songs – is that they’re relatively easy to play. If that inspires a kid to pick up an instrument, I think it’s great.

While Vietnamese game developers have been doing contract work for foreign companies for some time, the country's first locally-created game project is now underway.

Thanh Nien News reports that Game Studio South, a subsidiary of VinaGame, is developing Thuan Thien Kiem, a PC title which draws upon the history and culture of Vietnam:

The first 100-percent Vietnamese game is expected to be launched this summer under the title Thuan Thien Kiem, which means “God’s Sword,” a legendary weapon used by Vietnamese King Le Loi in the 14th-15th centuries...

Taking place in the Later Le Dynasty from the mid-15th century to 16th century, Thuan Thien Kiem features content from local folk stories and legends. In the game, players take on the roles of legendary Vietnamese heroes and heroines...

Traditional customs like marriage ceremonies and folk games will also be a part of the game, which aims to give players the background histories of favorite folk songs. The game also details the origins of several rare pieces of music from Vietnam’s past dynasties.