What permissions(if any) are needed to name a band after the title of a book?
Let’s say I wanted to name my band Harold And The Purple Crayon or Cujo-do I need permission to do this?
IANAL, but I don’t thing that titles can not be copyrighted. I have two books with the title “Millennium”, and two with the title “Russian Spring”.
It’s true that titles cannot be copyrighted. However, certain titles may have been trademarked. That would be rare but checkable at the Trademark Office Database.
Harold and the Purple Crayon is not there but Purple Crayon is, in connection with the movie, and so is Cujo, albeit as “Smart home security device for protection against and monitoring of malware, hacks, unauthorized data and programs, and virtual intrusions.” I can also find Catch-22 and 1984, neither of which are connected to the books.
My guess is that many bands have named themselves after novels, famous or otherwise. Go right ahead and if you run into legal trouble be sure to let people here know.
There are plenty of bands who’ve *already *done this.
IANAL either, but believe E-DUB is correct - in most cases, book titles are too generic to copyright.
However, this doesn’t stop an an author from going through a trademarking process. Which would be an easy thing to find out. It should be stated in the title itself TM.
How about character names obviously derived from books/media? I’m thinking about the fictional band Priss and the Replicants from Bubblegum Crisis. If I named a band that, could I be violating two levels of trademark?
It’s not in the trademark registry.
Note that if The Hounds of the Baskervilles, for example, is trademarked for a series of books/movies/whatever, this wouldn’t necessarily stop you from trademarking the phrase for other products such as a band name. (Trademark confusion/dilution gets complicated and once lawyers decide to jump in, you may want to jump out.)