Activision won’t let you cover and share other artists’ songs in new Guitar Hero

It looks like my dream of flooding Guitar Hero World Tour’s “GH Tunes” online sharing service with Christina Aguilera covers has been crushed. According to Neversoft’s Brian Bright, if an infringing cover track appears online, it’s Activision’s duty to pull the content immediately. 

“We’ll be actively monitoring the site,” he tells 1UP, “and, obviously, if the copyright holder complains, Activision will pull it down immediately. We can’t condone people putting up covers of music. It’s really there for original content.”

But even if someone doesn’t complain, the songs are getting the old yankeroonie anyhow, Bright clarifies. Like trolling YouTube for offending video content, I’d imagine there are going to be a lot of busy interns hitting up the “GH Tunes” store looking for my cover of Aguilera’s “Fighter.”

Guitar Hero World Tour offers a pretty impressive suite of music creation software, which — as Bright points out — should be great for musicians (and gamers) looking to create their own music. But many gamers had seen the Guitar Hero studio as a way to circumvent downloadable content; why buy Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” when you can make your own? How does this, if at all, change the way you look at the service and the tools Neversoft are offering?