US Trade Mark / LLC Question

[al_bot]

Hello All,

Question, it's it worth going through the effort / money to a getting a trademark for your band name and setting up an LLC to protect yourself? I'm an amateur, planning to release some music, maybe play a gig or two, and don't expect to make much money/not a full time job. More of a hobby. Is it still worth spending the money on these items? Thx!

A

[garyb]

if you are serious about work, yes.
otherwise, no.

oth- if you just have extra time and money, then yes. you never know.

try to identify the actual risks. that will help.

[valis]

Trademark must be registered AND enforced to hold water in court. It only applies within your geographical and economic market, and if you don't pursue trademark enforcement then you may give up those rights. Which means it's not like copyright (where you don't need to do a thing--in theory--to be covered, not even the 'poor man's copyright', though collecting royalties is another matter entirely of course). That also means that for trademarks to truly be effective, you have to keep a lawyer on retainer than can handle pursuing those claims. That's the technical aspects as I understand them.

I agree with GaryB though, if you intend to build the trademark(able) name to where it may be visible, then it's perhaps worth the extra time and money.

Check out the following wikipedia article, specifically the portion titled "Controversy with The Chemical Brothers"

[al_bot]

Thank you for the information everyone. Good reminder on thr Chemical Brothers. Now I remember the keyboard article about Dust Brothers and Chemical Brothers and the back and forth.