Chapter 12: Protecting Your Work
As a creative enterprise, you have certain assets called intellectual property. These typi-
cally include your logo, the name of your bad or solo act, custom graphics used in your
branding efforts and, of course, your songs. All of these intellectual property assets need
to be protected. That’s usually done through, copyrights, along with trademark and name
or “word mark,” registration. As an example, your act name and logo are typically pro-
tected by registering with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, while music and lyrics
are protected by registering with the Copyright Office.
I discussed band and act names in chapter 2, but a refresher is probably a good idea.
Before settling on a name, do some research to ensure it’s not already being used. Google
is a good place to start, but you’ll also want to check with other organizations and data-
bases such as:
[
- Band Register (www.bandname.com)
- Licensing organizations including BMI (www.bmi.com) and ASCAP (www.ascap.com)
- U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (www.uspto.gov) using TESS (Trademark Electronic
Search System)
Band names can, and should be, registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Of-fice. The logo design and band name can be trademarked and use ™ within the logo de-
sign or word marked. For example, “Madonna” is a registered word mark, as is “Paul
McCartney.” The idea behind these marks is ready identification for the public.