Just to recap recent events: There have been so many Black Flag and almost-Black Flag reunions in the past few years it's hard to keep track (what ever happened to Black Face? Just a single, really?). Most recently, the "actual" Black Flag reunited (or a bunch of dudes who were previously in the band at various times, plus one new one) featuring: Greg Ginn, Ron Reyes, Gregory Moore, and Dave Klein.
Around the same time, other dudes who were formerly in Black Flag (plus one new one) created FLAG, including: Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, Dez Cadena, Bill Stevenson, and Stephen Egerton.
 |
| Man, I really like ripping off Spin today or something. Here's their logo comparison between FLAG/Black Flag. |
This was all fine and dandy -- confusing at first, but all around find and dandy -- until Greg Ginn took issue with the fact there were two Black Flag bands out there using four-bar logos. Ginn's lawyer said he was "forced" to bring about the suit. It wasn't stated directly, but it seemed like Ginn was upset that FLAG was profiting off of Black Flag's name and image.
As of today's announcement, the case has been settled, and after reading the findings, I'm not really sure what Ginn or his lawyer were thinking. Findings via Spin:
(1) the court found that SST had no rights in the trademarks;(2) Ginn seemed to have no individual rights in the Black Flag trademarks;(3) even if either had had any rights in those marks, they had abandoned those rights through a failure to police the mark for nearly 30 years;(4) the defendants’ claim that the Black Flag assets were owned by a statutory partnership comprised of various former band members – even if these members only consisted of Henry and Ginn, based on (a) accepting Ginn’s argument that he never quit and given that there is no evidence or allegation that Henry ever quit – has merit;(5) that even if the plaintiffs had some trademark claim in the marks, there was no likelihood of consumer confusion between Black Flag and Flag given the ample press coverage over the dispute; and(6) the trademark application and registration that Henry and Keith made was done in good faith (e.g. not fraudulently) – and is thus not necessarily subject to cancellation – given that they understood their actions to have been done on the part of the Black Flag partnership (see No. 4, above).
So, Ginn claimed he owned the Black Flag logo by way of SST, which wasn't true. Ginn doesn't have sole ownership of anything Black Flag since there were dozens of guys in the band (identity crisis, much?). Apparently, Ginn threw away any rights to claim ownership over the logo because he failed to "police" it -- which I interpret as meaning there were other occasions when the logo was misused, but Ginn is cherry-picking just this one case. The court actually ruled that Henry Rollins is still a part of Black Flag since he never quit, which seems irrelevant to this case. It also ruled that people are smart enough to know the difference between FLAG and Black Flag, and FLAG legally and legitimately trademarked... something, presumably their name or logo.
All of these findings seem painfully obvious to me even with my limited legal background.
And if ANYONE has any say over the use of the Black Flag logo, it should be Raymond Pettibone:
No comments:
Post a Comment