Remember last year, when Red Octane sued The Ant Commandos over their third-party guitar peripheral? Activision now own Red Octane, and are...suing The Ant Commandos.

They allege that three of the senior development staff from Guitar Hero II - executive producer John Tam, brand manager Corey Fong, and hardware group member Jamie Yang - have established a company of their own called both Lodestone Entertainment and Hourglass Interactive (which isn't confusing at all), teamed up with The Ant Commandos and are passing along all kinds of insider secrets.

Activision is accusing the three workers of copyright infringement, trademark infringement, misappropriating trade secrets and confidential information, breach of contract, interference with contractual relations, and more.

Tsk tsk. Naughty naughty.

The three developers are prevented from using or disclosing any knowledge of Activision trade secrets they have. The order specifically mentions things like contract terms for music licensing and in-game advertising, sales figures, marketing plans, product designs, and possible future songs and artists to be featured. They are also restrained from taking any steps to develop a guitar controller for the Xbox 360 edition of Guitar Hero II until the game has been on shelves for at least three months.

Think Activision are paranoid? The fact the three are (allegedly) working with The Ant Commandos, on a game involving guitars, may explain a bit of that.

Who would have guessed a simple guitar-based video game could provide us with so much courtroom drama? Hit the link for the full GameSpot article, which goes into quite a bit of legal detail. Luke Plunkett

Activision sues Guitar Hero developers [GameSpot]

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