Trademarking?

[53Crëw]

Are any of you guys here trademarking your band name? What's the best way to go about doing this?

Thanks.

 

[Clockwork]

Assuming you are talking about trademarking in the US it's kinda of a pain in the dick. I guess it's not so bad once you fill out the forms, pay the fee and then wait about a year hoping that it gets approved and then there are no disputes but you gotta ask yourself if it's worth it for your band (given the typical lifespan of bands).

 

[amarshism]

It's expensive. We'll be doing it soon.

 

[JasinElric]

If memory serves, you can trademark your band's logo, not the actual name. No one will ever own words. (unless you're that "let's get ready to rumble" dickhead) Make sure it's worth trademarking. If you have a band name that sounds like it could be an organization or some type of entertainment company, it might be worth it to trademark. But if your name is like, "Hellspawn Demons of the Nordic Winds" I doubt you'd have much to worry about.

There are measures outside of copyright law that you can take to protect your stuff. As long as you have some kind of dated documentation that predates what someone else has, you're pretty much in the clear. You could do the poorman's copyright and just mail yourself your logo. It's dated with government seal etc. Not sure how well that would stand in court, but it's something.

 

[Metal Overload]

It reminds me that time when a rapper kid sent me a message on Myspace, to change my band name because he was using it for a already a year and he got it trademarked on this website (Something like "registeryourname.com") so he was going to sue me, i replied "Ah yeah, well we used this name for about 10 years already and have two albums, im not gonna change it, but if you want to sue me, go ahead, but you will also have to sue all this bands" and i pasted like 10 myspace profiles and websites of bands with the same name all over the world. never got heard of him or his lawyer again.

 

[juarez]

If memory serves, you can trademark your band's logo, not the actual name. No one will ever own words. (unless you're that "let's get ready to rumble" dickhead) Make sure it's worth trademarking. If you have a band name that sounds like it could be an organization or some type of entertainment company, it might be worth it to trademark. But if your name is like, "Hellspawn Demons of the Nordic Winds" I doubt you'd have much to worry about.

There are measures outside of copyright law that you can take to protect your stuff. As long as you have some kind of dated documentation that predates what someone else has, you're pretty much in the clear. You could do the poorman's copyright and just mail yourself your logo. It's dated with government seal etc. Not sure how well that would stand in court, but it's something.

Too easy to fake the poor man's copyright. Just mail yourself an empty, unsealed envelope to get the postmark. Keep it for a rainy day. You could put anything in it at any time and seal it, claiming that you had possession at the time of postmark.

 

[53Crëw]

Meh... Probably not worth the trouble. Thanks for the comments, guys.

 

[AD Chaos]

It's expensive. We'll be doing it soon.

Would you care to elaborate more?