My band is undergoing a name change. My favorite choice for a new name is also the title of a song by my favorite recording artist. Would my band be violating the copyright law in any way by using this title as our new name? We are not a tribute band; I just really like the title/name. Thank you for any advice/info. you can give.
It worked for Godsmack.
Hmm, it does cause confusion when I talk about Masters of Reality, since people think I’m talking about the Sabbath album…
The copyright laws do not apply to song titles.
There are many examples of two different songs
with the same title. So, I can’t see how you could
be prevented from using a song title as the name
of your band.
Jeff is right. You can’t copyright titles. You can trademark them (Star Trek™), but it’s highly unlikely anyone bothers with a song.
If song titles were subject to copyright, then the following wouldn’t be possible.
There is a whole rash of “tribute bands” doing the pub and club circuit in Australia. These are acts who blatantly imitate famous bands as closely as possible: the songs, the look, the costumes. Most tribute bands pick on one particular subject, and occasionally take the name of a famous song or album as their own.
Some examples are Abbey Road, who do Beatles shows; What’s Love got to do with it? does the Tina Turner stuff; Hells Bells do AC/DC; etc.
{end hijack}
You can use the title of a song as your band name. You could even use a song title as the title of a book or movie. You might remember the movie Velvet Goldmine, which is named after a David Bowie song. Bowie wouldn’t give the filmmakers the rights to any of his songs for the soundtrack, but they didn’t need his permission to use one of his titles.
Don’t bands name themselves after their own songs? The only instance I can think of offhand where a title was tripled (song title, album title, and band name all at once) is Bad Company. I imagine there must be other examples.
Jomo Mojo - This one comes pretty close: The 80’s song “In a Big Country,” on the album of the same name, by the band “Big Country.”
I can’t believe no one has mentioned The Rolling Stones, who took their name from the Muddy Waters song.
Also, I believe there was a band called War, who had both an album and song by the same name.