Guitar Hero
In April 2015, Activision announced a new entry in the series, titled "Guitar Hero Live". The title was developed by Activision's internal studio FreeStyleGames, who previously had worked on the "DJ Hero" spinoff titles. FreeStyleGames were given free rein to reboot the "Guitar Hero" series for next-generation consoles. One of their first innovations was to drop the standard five-button guitar controller, ultimately designing a six-button guitar controller, with two rows of three buttons each, allowing them to mimic actual guitar fingering. "Guitar Hero Live" was released with both a career and an online mode. The career mode used full-motion video taken from the perspective of a lead guitarist underneath the note highway, to create an immersive experience to the player. The online mode, called "GHTV", discarded the previous downloadable content approach and used a music video channel approach to stream playable songs to players, adding new songs to the catalog on a weekly basis. The game was released in October 2015.
Guitar Hero
Gibson Guitar Corporation, whose guitar likenesses have appeared in the "Guitar Hero" series from the first game to "Guitar Hero Aerosmith", informed Activision on January 7, 2008, that it believed the games infringe its . Gibson claimed that this covers technology that simulates a concert performance via pre-recorded audio and a musical instrument. In response, Activision filed a suit seeking a declaration that it was not in violation of the Gibson patent; Activision also asserted that Gibson had given an implied license by waiting to assert the patent and that the patent was invalid. On March 17, 2008, Gibson sued six retailers (GameStop, Amazon.com, Wal-Mart, Target, Toys "R" Us and Kmart) for selling "Guitar Hero" products. Subsequently, on March 21, 2008, Gibson also filed a lawsuit against EA, MTV, and Harmonix over their game "Rock Band" also for violation of its patent, to which a Harmonix spokesperson stated that Gibson's claims are "completely without merit". Activision lawyer Mary Tuck stated in their legal filings that they believe that Gibson initiated the lawsuit due to the fact that "Activision was not [interested] in renewing the License and Marketing Support Agreement" with Gibson Guitars.
In February 2009, the United States District Court for the Central District of California ruled against Gibson in their case against Activision, stating that the controllers are not musical instruments but "toys that represent other items", and that Gibson's patent only covers instruments that send out analog signals. Activision and Gibson settled the suit following this ruling.