Actually, the copyright to the song (i.e., the score) and the copyright to their recording of it are two separate things. It's likely they just didn't own the copyright in the score, and whoever did happily licensed it away to Activision.
This reminds me of the strange case of Tom Waits v. Frito Lay, in which old Tom was awarded $6 million for "misappropriation of personality" after Frito Lay hired a Waits impersonator to sing in a commercial. You Americans and your crazy IP laws!
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Actually, the copyright to the song (i.e., the score) and the copyright to their recording of it are two separate things. It's likely they just didn't own the copyright in the score, and whoever did happily licensed it away to Activision. This reminds me of the strange case of Tom Waits v. Frito Lay, in which old Tom was awarded $6 million for "misappropriation of personality" after Frito Lay hired a Waits impersonator to sing in a commercial. You Americans and your crazy IP laws!