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Using Your Own Name May Be Infringement, Part 2
phillymjs writes "We're probably all familiar with Uzi Nissan and his fight to keep his nissan.com domain name from the clutches of Nissan Motors. Well, more same-name idiocy came to light today-- the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that their staff music writer, Bill Wyman, has received a cease-and-desist letter from lawyers representing former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, for "a seriously misleading and, arguably, an intentional, unauthorized exploitation of our client's name, goodwill and publicity value."
It should be interesting to see how this one plays out, because Bill Wyman the musician was born William George Perks and changed his name to Bill Wyman in 1964. Journalist Bill Wyman was given that name at his birth in 1961."
Considering the name change and the dates involved, this one just *BEGS* for the "real" owner of the name to countersue and demand the other change his name back (or to something else).
;-)
Damn, though, *this* one takes balls. I have to admit, paranoid as I can seem, I didn't see it getting to the point where using one's one name in normal daily activities would count as infringment.
Ah well, too bad I don't read Rolling Stone, I can't cancel my subscription in protest.
In Germany at least, you aren't free to select a name for your offspring. Offensives names are forbidden (Like Hitler, and a more recent case of a Turkish couple living in Germany that wanted to name their child Osama Bin Laden).
What?
Wait, let me rephrase: When Bill Wyman was 47, he started dating/doing a 13 year old girl.
Oh, That's the reputation that his lawyer is trying to protect.
Amusing sidenote: Bill's 31 year old son Steven started dating Mandy's 46 year old mother Patsy and at one point planned to marry her. (This is after Bill/Mandy's divorce). Still, it would have made Steven his own divorced step-grandfather.
I think you'll find it interesting.
I just searched for my own name (in quotes) on google, and found:
- A wildlife foundation under my name
- A gallery under my name
- A cricket player with my name
- A professor with my name
- A folk singer with my name
- Artists with my name
- About 14,000 other links with my name not related to me personally.
I already knew many companies operated under my last name, but didn't know so many used my full name!
So, how many of you are in danger of losing your names like this?
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Check this out.
...
:)
"Lord Macdonald of Macdonald, premier clan chief of Clan Donald, has appointed Ronald W McDonald to be Sergeant-Major at Arms of the Guardians of Clan Donald: the linear descendant of the chief's bodyguard.
One specific aim is to offer moral support to Mary Blair, proprietor of McMunchies, a small sandwich bar in Fenny Stratford, Buckinghamshire, who is being threatened with legal action by McDonald's Restaurants, the fast food chain, for daring to use the prefix "Mc" in the name of her shop.
When interviewed in BBC2's "The Money Programme" a top trademark lawyer made it clear that McDonald's have not a legal leg to stand on. Instead they rely on their unlimited financial resources to bully small businesses who cannot afford to fight back."
Really.. read the entire press release, it just gets better and better. This is coming from a long extended thing that happened around 1996, when McDonalds decided they were going to start trying to crack down on anyone doing anything vaguely resembling their trademarks. I'm not sure if they ever got McMunchie's to change their name, but whatever happened they did manage to piss off, in the process, Scotland. The best bit about the whole thing was that, according to an absolutely fantastic 60 Minutes report on this and the McLibel case, Lord MacDonald of MacDonald was so enraged by the whole thing that he decided to open a restaurant in the traditional family estate of the MacDonald clan, and name it "MacDonald's". The restaurant serves things like duck, and whatever else is the U.K. equivilent of "gourmet" food. Thus far McDonald's Inc. of America has yet to challenge him over the name.
As my more-or-less universal online handle is an abbreviation of my last name, McClure (it's a degradation of MacLeod), i have to say this case holds a small bit of interest for me.. it is a discomforting thought to know that a corporation may possibly want to claim ownership to the first two letters of my slashdot logon
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Almost like this case, certainly very comparable to it, and in a way, even more absurd...
I once read a short story about an ordinary Joe who bore too much resemblance to a famous actor. The actor didn't want any 'unauthorized copies' out there, so he sued the guy and forced him to have plastic surgery to change his appearance.
If Bill Wyman (from birth) loses this one, how long until the science fiction story becomes true? Given the absurdity running rampant through the US legal system, I wouldn't bet against it.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
You've raised some points that for various reasons have been on my mind over the last few months. In particular I've been thinking about the inability of the average American to afford (either by training or by purchase of service) access to our legal system. In what sense of the phrase is everyone "equal under the law" if some people/groups have access to better legal services than others. The obvious solution is this: nationalize the lawyers.
Now I'll admit I haven't spent a lot of time thinking this through but the idea has some obvious charms. Everyone from the poorest homeless person to the wealthiest corporation gets the same level of service and access. This could push the legal system to become more abritrative than adversarial - hopefully resulting in a renewed focus on the pursuit of justice rather than victory for its own sake. (I read about an interesting example of this a few years ago: A law firm started handling IRS audits on a flat fee basis. They had amazing settlement rates because the IRS knew they couldn't drag the proceedings out until the clients ran out of money to pay for their defense).
I think it would have been nice if the Journalist BW had put a disclaimer on his Rolling Stones articles *as a courtesy* to prevent confusion, but no way in the world should he be forced to do so through threat of legal sanction. He has a greater claim to the name, in some ways.
Conversely, it would be equally nice that should Musician BW decide to write anything, he specify he is not the Journalist BW.
People overlook these things so often, by just leaping straight to legal threats and litigation. Had Musician BW (or his agent) just written a friendly letter to Journalist BW, asking him to consider qualifying his Rolling Stones articles as a courtesy, I'm sure it would have been readily agreed to. But no, people with lawyers always have to leap to the 'cease and desist'.
By way of example, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once received a polite letter from an American writer of the same name, asking very nicely if PM Churchill could qualify his byline (PM Churchill was also a published author of some note) to make clear the difference between the two. PM Churchill instantly agreed (in a quite amusing reply letter) to always include his middle intial when publishing texts in the U.S. Both sides were satisfied, quickly and without lawyers, by using a bit of civility and commonsense.
Doesn't seem to be as much of that about thesedays.
SofaMan -- Occasionally Battling Evil With His Mighty Powers Of Indolence.