False copyright claim for artist name

[brenner123]

Hey,

I'm an artist on spotify. An artist with the same name has filled a copyright claim on the artist name and has taken all of my music offline. I just released a record two weeks ago so I'm panicking.  He is unresponsive through email. My distributor TuneCore has just said it's between myself and the other artist. Spotify obvioulsy is practicing a giulty until prooven innocent policy. I've submitted my claim 10 days ago and have heard nothing back from them.  

Theres nothing stopping two artist having the same name on Spotify, so why has this other artist been able to take all my music offline. Any one have any ideas what my next steps should be??

Thanks

[Buí43]

I have had this happen to me with a song title before however we were able to contact the person who made the claim. I believe this is done at the distribution stage as that was how we got his email. Ie his distributor has sent him something saying something along the lines of this song has been released do you want it to be removed or contact the other party. We are lucky he chose the latter and said he listened to the song and it wasn't similar.

Seems like you have fallen unlucky with someone who might be bitter about someone having the same name as them. I would phone/message Tunecore if I were you but unfortunately it is quite a difficult issue. Unluckily it will usually happen around the time of a release. It may also be worth looking up spotify artist separation.

Hope this helps, Sorry to hear about this.

Cheers!

[Ryanx0r]

Actually, normally you should be contacted by the artist/management or lawyer up front giving you time to make the changes yourself. Most cases, especially if American, they can file for a trademark on their name and logos and then you'd basically have to remove your music from the listed territories. It's unfortunate and I've had it happen to one of our artists - however, we were contacted by the lawyer and had x-amount of time to comply - meaning we had to redeliver every single track under a new artist name. 

Having the music removed from Spotify is not Spotify's fault. I'm guessing your distribution was contacted with a cese and disist and basically just decided to cease straight away. I'm guessing this is TuneCore - so stra,ge they didn't let you know.

Grts,

^R

[panicingband]

Hi, 

We have just had all of our music taken down from Spotify with no warnings or notifications from anyone. According to the Spotify help desk it is due to a copyright claim but they will not tell me regarding what, (artist name, song……) the only advice they offer is to contact our distributor, so in our case Distrokid. We have sent Distrokid a help request but nothing has come back yet. We are set to release our new single in two days so we are now in full panic mode.

Just thought I would reach out to see how or if you solved your situation.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[badlymusic]

I just had someone threat to take my music down due to having my name trademarked and am freaking out and so was wondering what the current status of your situation is? I use distrokid as well-were you able to release your old songs with your new name now?

[panicingband]

Hi there,
Looks like you are in a slightly better position to do something about it
if the other party has told you in advance what they are intending to do.
If you are still live on Spotify and other platforms you can change the
name and not loose your stats. If a claim goes in to any of the platforms,
does not matter if it's true or false, they will just take you down and
then tell you to solve the issue with the claimant yourself. There seems to
be no way of getting anyone from either Spotify or Distrokid to actually
help you or verify whether the claim is legal, basically they just don't
want to know.
What you can do is read up on trademark law and request that the other band
send you proof of their trademark, in the correct classes. If they have a
legal claim there is not much you can do, but if they don't you can tell
them to withdraw the claim or hire a lawyer.
As we were taken down without any warning, we still haven't been able to
get our music back online. The claim made against us is not legal, but we
are a British band, aged 16 - 17 years old, and we can not afford a US
trademark lawyer so we just have to start again which is extremely unfair
and upsetting.
We have been told that the only way forward is for us to change our name,
remaster our tracks, because if they have the same metadata they will be
rejected when uploaded by a different artist....even though we are the
same...…. This will also be very costly and is taking a long time.
The main thing that we have learned from this is that all the platforms and
distributors are keeping very quiet about the issue of trademarking. There
is no information on anyone's sites not even when you actively search for
it. Not any of the distributors tell you that this can become an issue nor
do they discourage bands from using the same name. None of the platforms or
distributors have been able to answer these 2 questions:
Who in your company makes sure that a trademark infringement claim is
legitimate and reasonable?
What is put in place to stop bands from abusing the system by accusing each
other out of malice?
We are seriously questioning where this could lead if more people/bands
were to takeout and claim their trademark rights...… as we have found out
there are very few names out there that are not already taken (or going by
trademark law: that can in some way be confused with).
We hope that you will be able to stop this by acting quickly, it's not a
situation that I wish on anyone.

Best wishes,
FLARES??