this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
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17
[Legal question] Are song titles subject to trademark? (fedia.io)
submitted 4 weeks ago by ryujin470@fedia.io to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Are song titles alone (not when used with other things) subject to trademark?

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[–] stinerman@midwest.social 9 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

No. A trademark is to tell a customer that a certain good was made by a certain person or company. This is prevent confusion over which company makes a thing. It's why you can't create an operating system kernel and call it Linux. You can create a clothing company and call it Linux though because no one would be confused that Linux clothing is in any way related to the computer operating system component.

Band names can and are trademarked. So you can't call your new band "The Beatles" or "Five Finger Death Punch". Titles are subject to copyright though, which is a separate thing altogether.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago

No. https://secureyourtrademark.com/can-you-trademark/trademark-a-song/#:~:text=No%2C%20you%20cannot%20trademark%20a,rather%20than%20the%20material%20itself.

[–] BitSound@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago

Definitely not. There's a whole genre of music that's created for riding the coattails of popular songs. They wait for a song title by artists like Taylor Swift to be announced and then release their own songs with the same title. Sometimes they're actually good, like this dude:

https://genius.com/artists/Only-fire

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

The general consensus of the internet seems to be no, although this surely varies to some degree based on the laws in whichever country you're in.

Before anyone tries the other avenue of attack, titles to things generally cannot be copyrighted, either. Content of a work can be, but the name of it cannot.

[–] MyDogLovesMe@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

You can have 40 songs all named the same. No legal recourse. IANAL, JAM.

(Just a musician).

[–] eth0slash0@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Speaking of song names, Anal Jam sounds like an extreme dark metal song.

[–] MyDogLovesMe@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Hey, I’m down.

[–] tacosanonymous@lemm.ee 3 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Anal- I think you can call your song "Mr. Brightside" or "Paint it Black" if you really want. Idk why you would though..

[–] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 11 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Can't say I see many people using the "ANAL" acronym in lowercase... lol

[–] CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago

It always used to be IANAL on reddit. Why did they drop the I?

[–] emax_gomax@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

Yeah, you'd make your version basically impossible to search for unless it massively blows up

[–] baronvonj@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

Not a lawyer, probably depends on context.