trademark for a band name

hey!

i'm wondering if anyone has any experience with band name trademarks.

if you do and could share it, i would love it.

looks like i have to submit an application to USPTO? i know i'm being lazy, and there are like copyright threads, but i'm feeling antsy and asking for tips.

thxx :D

it depends, what is your band name

RARA

i'm not really a band, but whatever

are you sure you want to trademark your name?

...

i'm just saying you don't have to. . .

is there any reason why i shouldn't?

you have common law protection, if you've been using the same name for awhile. you can go through the process of filing with the PTO, but it's time consuming and seems like a waste of time? but maybe not to you i guess

to be honest, i don't know much about what the benefits are/lack thereof... what is "common law protection"?

can i legally distribute/sell records without a trademark?

yes

oh

ra ra riot may have something to say about this.

that's what i'm saying, i don't wanna get in any kind of mess. i mean it would specifically be spelled "RARA" which is quite different in my eyes, but...

just forget about trademarking and make some music

seriously^^

you don't want to fuck with the rochester amateur radio association

xp, that's what i've been doing. i was thinking i needed to get a little more official

if you really want to get official, make a CD, mail it to yourself (make sure it has the date on the postmark) and then don't open it

i guess that's the half assed official way to be fair

you don't want to fuck with the rochester amateur radio association

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/ip-telephony-12.jpg

reminds me of this WaPo article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/18/AR2009051803171.html

Marissa Ditkowsky, a Long Island teenager, has been checking her mailbox for 15 months for the copyright registration for three songs she wrote, recorded and sent on a compact disc to the federal government.

"We lost a whole year," said her mother, Alita, who wants to launch her guitar-strumming daughter on a music career. At 14, Marissa is too young to appear on "American Idol." Instead, she wants to sing her songs during open-mike nights at local clubs and make a professional demo she can shop to music companies.

But Alita Ditkowsky does not want her daughter to perform without a copyright, because she fears that Marissa's songs are so good, someone else will steal them. She said she learned that lesson years ago while trying to get a job at an advertising agency.

"They asked me to write an ad for the Schick electric shaver," Ditkowsky said. "So one day in my car, I hear this radio spot I had wrote for the Schick electric shaver. It was my commercial, word for word. They used it, didn't pay me for it, didn't even hire me. But legally, I had no recourse."

At first, the Ditkowskys were told it would take three to six months to register Marissa's songs. That grew to nine months, then a year. When she last called for an update, Alita Ditkowsky was told 16 months.

"This is just unacceptable," the mother said. "Any company outside of a government agency would have been held accountable for this. They cashed my check, and I got nothing for it. There's something very, very wrong here."

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2009/05/19/PH2009051901503.jpg

how good do we think her songs are

i was thinking i needed to get a little more official

seriously it will not make you any more official. it's kind of lame.

if you really want to get official, make a CD, mail it to yourself (make sure it has the date on the postmark) and then don't open it

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, May 20, 2009 8:47 PM (8 minutes ago)

this doesnt actually work

if you ask it if it is a cop then it does

trademark =! copyright

oh i guess that's for copyright not trademark

i don't understand trademarks very well

Just put a (TM) after your band name every time you use it and everything should be copacetic.

^^^ right. which, on paper, is pretty lame.

Also I stole your band name and it's mine now, sorry dude :(

RARATM

que, the purpose of TM's is to prevent confusion in the marketplace, not to protect creative expression

err TMs

ah i gotcha

just call your band Trademark

could you trademark Trademark

so, moral of the story: i don't have to do anything, or register anything, i can just print & distribute?

IYHO

you have to sue n/a first for your band name back, win, and then you can do all that stuff.

it all depends on who puts up the myspace page first

sorry guys i already recorded a RARA ep before n/a posted, that's what i was doing between 3:32 and 4:04 pm today

xp

link?

ha like i'm gonna let you steal my songs

(they are too good for the internet)

Is dis you?

http://deepgoa.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/good-morning-gls013-rara-happiness-machines-2009/

Dis?
http://www.glam-slam.de/?page_id=48

nope but that poses a problem, i guess

You are not Winfried Pfeuffer?

lol no

http://www.chabadofrara.org/media/images/133/Dsnm1338580.jpg

I don't see a TM on those pages, steal that shit!

best thing to do with a band name is establish precedence, i.e. just start using the name, publish under it, etc

worse thing is you end up being rara uk or rara jr if someone crawls out of the woodwork and gives you hassle

in this day and age it's very difficult to come up with a unique band name

a couple of years ago I was like "I'm gonna start a fake metal band called gorehorn!" guess what? http://www.myspace.com/gorehorn

gorehorn uk is an even better fake metal band name though

gorehorn nyc

gorehorn imo

gorehorn iirc

gorehorn ftw

gorehorn fwiw

roxy should totally start a black metal band called gorehorn imo imo

if you really want to get official, make a CD, mail it to yourself (make sure it has the date on the postmark) and then don't open it

You all know this doesn't really have any effect, right? What you're supposed to do is make a CD, mail it to 100 other people who don't open it, they're called promos.

what is the deal with copyright registration in the U.S. (WGA, Copyright Office, etc.) vs., say, UK law where copyright is assumed as soon as you write shit down? what do other countries do? which is better? (i know which i prefer, but i assume this is not a straightforward question)

I've found one good way to check if a band name's in use even by small fry is to look it up on a site like last.fm - as thatscrobbles any old shit people on it play you'll find even unsigned acts.

one of my bf's projects is Modex, but there's also a Modex in Argentina. My bf was first by about 8 years (and can prove it) but eh, what ya gonna do, it just makes for amusing fan arguments on lastfm and facebook, hur.

And yeah, just make a presence for yourself with the name - release singles and albums, play gigs, have a myspace and lastfm official band page (the proper band pages not just a personal page).

what is the deal with copyright registration in the U.S. (WGA, Copyright Office, etc.) vs., say, UK law where copyright is assumed as soon as you write shit down?

Congress changed the US copyright law in 1976 to follow this standard. Copyright exists in a creation as soon as it is fixed in any tangible form: written, painted, taped, what have you. But having the copyright doesn't get you the same legal power you get if you register the work -- if someone infringes your work, you can't sue for damages that happened before you registered, and you can't get the same amount of compensation.

Actually you can be sued for infringing on someone else's trademark. And it gets to be expensive and painful quickly. Not every band needs a trademark, but a serious band should cover its ass.

something not right with the 'chabad of rara' roadsign in NickB's post.

Yeah, I think there's some sort of kickboxing move right in the chest there. Is it some sort of training camp for Hasidic ninjas?

Surmounter, you know that "rara" is also a style of Haitian music.

yeah, i found this out after i decided on it -- i think that's pretty cool, cuz it's kind of the feel i was going for (it's like festival music, according to wiki)

You could always go with Rara Rasputin?

Actually you can be sued for infringing on someone else's trademark. And it gets to be expensive and painful quickly. Not every band needs a trademark, but a serious band should cover its ass.

― Nate Carson, Thursday, 21 May 2009 04:51 (9 hours ago)

see negativland vs. u2

You could always go with Rara Rasputin?

― Enemy Insects (NickB), Thursday, May 21, 2009 10:30 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

see this is kind of not the feel i was going for...