Sunnyvale (CA) - The developers behind Guitar Hero have been banned from making similar games or any associated peripherals.  That's part of a settlement between the game creators and estranged publishing partner Activision.

Corey Fong and John Tam left development company Red Octane to work on their own products.  However, Activision claims it still owns the rights to the Guitar Hero series.  To prevent any copyright infringement issues, it has asked the development duo to refrain from making any games that resemble Guitar Hero for one year.

In addition, the settlement bans Fong and Tam from making any drum or synthesizer-based games, or related accessories.  It also calls for the two to return any Guitar Hero materials to Activision.

The Guitar Hero series has gone through a handful of corporate shuffles since the first game was released in 2005.  Once-independent publisher Red Octane was acquired by Activision, who decided to transfer development on the series to one of its in-house teams.  The original developer was Harmonix, which MTV bought last year.  In related news, Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360 was released today, marking the first entry for the series on a non-Sony platform.