It appears that Gibson has a tough battle ahead. Our sister blog Kotaku has been following this story since the litigation was announced a couple weeks ago, and they have posted statements from Activision and Harmonix, as well as Gibson's rebuttal, which claims that the guitar maker tried to negotiate a licensing deal with the game companies, but could not reach an agreement. Sure to make things awkward is the fact that Guitar Hero, as mentioned, features heavy Gibson product placement, in the form of controllers, purchasable guitars in the store, and in-game ads during play. Rock Band, on the other hand, uses guitars from rival company Fender, which might be able to snag licensing in the next version of Guitar Hero if this lawsuit is not easily resolved and instead, through the fire and the flames, carries on.

Gibson lawsuit stories [Kotaku]
(Photo: Alex Chasick)

Well, this past Tuesday, I had a one-on-one conversation with Gibson CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz. Now, it's rare that a CEO of a company that size will sit down on the phone with you and talk man to man, so for that, I was very impressed with the level of commitment and cooperation they showed in order to demonstrate the level of seriousness with which they took this whole situation. Henry assured me that this was something that Gibson was truly apologetic for and made his best effort to make sure that I came away from the entire experience feeling as though I was treated fairly and received what I deserved.

The Gibson rep who strung Tonedeff along last year left the company in November:

Henry mentioned that Don was "getting toasted" in the press and hoped that I could encourage folks to "take it easy on the guy" because apparently dude's been getting hate mail & phone calls up the yang from random folks around the world. I've never been the type of person to wish malice or pain on anyone (unless they rap), and I stand by that approach still. Personally, I think the public spanking that's already occurred is sufficient, considering this is something that will probably come up anytime someone Googles his name for a long time. That would definitely suck if I were him, so it is what it is. So, if anyone was planning on doing any wild shit, this would be a good time to put the bazooka away. Everything is settled.

In closing, I want to take this opportunity to thank EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU who took time out to lend your support, write letters, post blogs, make phone calls - once again, you helped settle this thing at lightning speed.

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