Copyright your artist name ?

[OliverPractice]

Give me the basics to copyright for somebody who wants to upload music. Can you get sued if you don't copyright and somebody else copyrights the name you use ?

Do you need to copyright your name ? Do you need to trademark your logo ?

Also another question is it important to make your website a .com site, or does ,net work equal good ?

What exactly does copyrighting do for you ?

Also should you copyright music before you upload it ?

 

[evanmays]

Hi OliverPractice

You won't really need to copyright your name. But, you're right on trademarking. Trademarks are for logos and names.

About domain names, generally .coms are more popular with Americans but that really depends on where you are.


Copyrighting is a way to officially say that this project is your's and no one elses to use without your permission. It's very important if you want to sell a lot of copies. It really depends on where you are though.

 

[rhythmgj]

Yes, if you want everything wrapped-up tight and "official," you need to learn more about copyright. But you can't copyright a name (a song title or an artist/group name)-- that would fall under Trademark (TM) or Servicemark (SM), depending on certain conditions. Also, re: web domains, you can check to see if various versions of your busines/band/artist name/whathaveyou are available. Then you can decide whether to reserve them all or not for a small fee, or to reserve the names and have them all go to a central site that uses the other addresses as a "pointer." (So, you could register domains like JoeBlow.com, JoeBlow.net, JoeBlow.org, JoeBlow.mus, etc., etc. for relatively small fees through GoDaddy, for example, provided they are all already available. Then you just actually put-up JoeBlow.com, and have all of the other domains point to the .com address).

GJ

 

[OliverPractice]

So for a first mixtape that is free for download, should I trademark my artist name ?

Can I just trademark it later ?

What if two artist have the same artist name, I youtubed and saw some rapper had my artist name, he uploaded the song 4 months ago. Can he sue me ? Probably not. I don't think he trademarked the name, I checked for it, not sure if I checked perfectly for it but well.

 

[rhythmgj]

It's more complicated than that. That's why there are lawyers . If you had it legally registered first (trade or service marked), it (most likely) wouldn't matter that he posted before you. Assuming a lack of registration for either of you, his posting four months ahead of yours would tend to give credibility to his priority of use. You could both try using the name without protections, but if one of you "blows up," a lawsuit is inevitable. One could argue "restraint of trade," as it's likely that people would be confused about which artist was which, which could cost in sales of downloads or CD's or posters or whatever. A lawsuit would be costly, and you might have to change your name in the long-run anyway.

Do more research, check out if this guy has been around awhile or is a flash in the pan, also check to see if there have been any domain registrations in that name... If it looks dicey, consider changing yours. If you are dead set against it, look into registering yours legally and properly, and be prepared for the possibility of legal issues down the road. Not guaranteeing, just saying... PS-- I'm not an attorney, nor do I give legal advice, which should be sought from an experienced and licensed professional, in your case, an expert in intellectual property rights.

GJ

 

[OliverPractice]

I'm very sure eh won't make it just 1 barely average song on youtube. I can trademark it once I get some sucess.

 

[bandcoach]

gj has covered most of this.

essentially your artist name is a trading name and therefore a trademark.

if in doubt about your artist name, just add "The Real" to front of it to distinguish yourself from the other artist (saw this last night on a a show that reviews media and journalists in Australia and it's poor or outstanding performance; the host had his twitter account name as TheRealPBarry), i.e. for me that would be "The Real Bandcoach".

In most cases, to trademark a name you already need to be in business and trading with that name.

On domain names - are you in business? if not getting the .com or its equivalent in your country of registration is usually dependent on having a legitimate registered business. the USA is much more lax in this regard, allowing people to register a dotcom first and then deal with the paperwork once it reaches critical mass (i.e. income far outweighs ongoing costs). It is also a good idea to snap up all of the top-level related names such as .net, .org, .mus (if you are in the music biz, this just makes sense now)

as gj said, I am not a lawyer and you should seek your own advice from a competent attorney licensed to practice in your jurisdiction. You should also consult an accountant as to how to value your trademark name(s) - a trademark is an intangible asset, i.e. it exists in name only, there is no physical asset to sell - and you should seek advice from an internet savvy lawyer as well in setting up your collection of domains.