Singer/Songwriter Claims Naughty Dog Copied Her Song In The Last Of Us Part 2 Trailer

Yesterday PlayStation unveiled the official commercial for The Last of Us Part 2, and it shows Ellie playing guitar and singing a version of a song called “True Faith” by New Order. However, a singer/songwriter named Lotte Kestner has come forward and accused Naughty Dog via Twitter of using a cover of her version of True Faith that she published in her album from a decade ago.

Kestner claims in her tweet that she wrote original parts for her cover of the song that wasn’t in the original and that whoever sang the song for the trailer for the video game. She finished her to “I am heartbroken.” IGN reports that about three minutes and 30 seconds into her version of the song, there are some humming vocals that fit in with the slower, acoustic style of the cover used in the video game trailer.

A similar vocal segment is also sung by Ellie in the trailer near the 45-second mark. The original New Order song doesn’t feature the humming-like vocals. Speculation suggests that perhaps copyright permission to use the song in the trailer for the videogame was sought from New Order. There is a similar case for 2013 that involve the Fox TV show Glee.

In that instance, it was a folk-style cover of the Sir Mix-A-Lot track “Baby Got Back” that was covered by Jonathan Coulton. In that instance, Coulton said that Fox had reached out to his people and said they were within their legal rights to use the song. In that instance, it had to do with the license the artist purchased to make his cover of the song and was said to be “the darkest gray of the gray areas” of the law. There’s been no response to Kestner from Naughty Dog at this time.