sometimes you cannot use your own name to start a business if you sold a business with your name and you agree to not use your name as part of the sale .
For example Leo Fender sold Fender guitars to CBS and then started a new company called G&L guitars for George and Leo, George was a friend of his.
Similarly, Steve Herrell founded Steve’s Ice Cream but sold it in 1977. When he wanted to start a new ice cream company he had to call it Herrell’s Ice Cream.
I doubt if Cole Porter asked for permission to name-check people in “You’re The Top”, or Tom Lehrer in his skit on George Murphy, or the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band for all the real people mentioned in The Intro and The Outro.
I read that before the Stones released “Starfucker” their reps asked Steve McQueen if he would have any objection to the lyric “Ali McGraw got mad at you for giving head to Steve McQueen”; McQueen replied it was fine with him. Of course it was the 70’s.
Song lyrics have the same rules as anything else. You can refer to real people.
But -
You can’t defame them
You can’t invade their privacy
You can’t misappropriate their personas for commercial purposes
OK, what I want to know is, did he ever follow through on the threat, or did he try to pretend it didn’t happen when it didn’t go the way he thought it would?
Apparently he apologized for it.
I was all prepared to have a little bit of respect, then he went and qualified it…
Yes you can. Song lyrics are much like anything else written or said. Not much chance of it happening but it could.
Just thought of another problem: If you threaten someone, esp. someone under Secret Service protection, you could have some explainin’ to do.
This statement seems to contradict itself.
Sugar, you don’t know what you’re missin’. 