Upon reading this horror story, I am truly speechless... and I'm Italian, so that's going some! This is every musician's NIGHTMARE. I have always felt that women NOT supporting other women (and musicians other musicians) was our biggest problem. Thus, I've dedicated my career to promoting "Strength Through Unity."
This women's fight is courageous. Her attitude, fearless. She *is* a real-life "SUPERHERO."
Strength Through Unity,
ulian aKa CCG Pop SUperhero
J
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We were in the studio working on a new album when my manager called me. She told me that a lawyer from Warner Bros (Warner Brothers) had called her wanting to speak to me. He had told her that they had put a band of superstars together for a band in the upcoming Harry Potter movie, and they were calling the band The Wyrd Sisters. There had been a band in the novel they were making the movie from called 'The Weird Sisters', but they thought wyrd was a cooler spelling. They were planning merchandise for the band, toys, recordings and possibly tours. " How can they do that? " I asked. I wasn't taking this call very seriously. We've had our fair share of strange calls over the years. I told our manager to have him put what he wanted in writing and to fax it to me.
Trademark 101:
"...Trademark infringement may occur when one party uses a trademark which is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services which the registration covers. An owner of a trademark may commence legal action against a party which infringes its registration...."
Laws can be as simple or complicated as you want to make them... or, if you have the time and money, want to bend them. Having said that, this is loosely the general premise of a trade mark:
If you have a business under a certain name, and you are the first to do business under that name in a certain area, then that trademark belongs to you for that area. It's called 'first usage'. If your product is global, then your trademark is global. Your trademark is applied to the product or service you provide. For instance, if you sell tires under the name of Flatt Tires, and you sell your tires worldwide, then no one else can sell tires under that name without your permission. Nor could they sell their tires under the name of Flat, Flott or Flitt. A trademark name for a product/service can not be too similar as it may cause confusion. You could possibly, however, sell Flatt Chicken, or Flatt Diapers. The products are not the same.
The Injunction
I had our lawyer communicate with Warner Bros. We tried to negotiate some kind of reasonable outcome for this blatant infringement of our trademark. They were not willing to negotiate at all. I was offended that not only did they believe that their wealth caused them to be immune from the law, but worse, that the sacred feminine name, the triple goddess- was being given to a band of male rockers. We chose the name to educate, to reclaim... People would ask: Who are the wyrd sisters? We'd answer: The wyrd sisters is the name of an ancient pre-christian deity who was above all all other gods. She was the maiden, the mother and the crone - the three phases of the moon, she who was, she who is, she who will be. The christians modeled the 'father, son and holy ghost' after her, shakespeare used her as his three witches in Macbeth. A form of this triple diety has existed in almost all human cultures.
The Media
Ahhh, now this is where the fairy tale ends and the nightmare begins...
An article was printed that contained a lot of misinformation. This article was picked up and reported, usually verbatim, worldwide. The article said that Warner Bros had offered us 50 thousand dollars. (No. It was 5 thousand...and a not-so-veiled threat .) The article quoted Radiohead as saying that we were ' a little band on a cash grab'. When we contacted radiohead they denied making this statement. The article was slanted to look like we just popped out of the woodwork to take advantage of the harry potter fame and Time Warner wealth. It was difficult to wrap our heads around how the media could be so irresponsible. The article was simply untrue, and it created an environment of public opinion which was very difficult to challenge and deal with. We learned that those who own the media can create their own reality. And who owns the media? Oh, but this was a very bad turn of events...
Court
Being lucky enough to never had to be in court before, we had a rather pedestrian vision of what court would look like. In essence, it would be: Gather your evidence. Present it to an impartial and unbiased judge. Recieve a fair and logical verdict. This is not what it was like.
We had to gather evidence, and put something together called a 'factum' to go to court with. In a nutshell, what we generally needed to do was prove that there would be confusion created between their band and ours, and that their band could impact negatively on ours. For instance, we didn't want to show up at a performance to an audience of preteens expecting the Harry Potter band. Nor did we want to be seen as 'stealing' the name of the Harry Potter band as some kind of cheap publicity stunt. Our factum, affadavits and evidence were large. We had copies of interviews and articles, hard copy items like the question from the Scene It? game and numerous other related evidences. When our lawyers cross examined the wb lawyer, his cross read like this:
" When did you graduate school?"
wb: " I can't remember"
"When were you called to the bar?"
wb: " I can't remember."
To a court newbie like me, everything seemed nicely sewed up. It was simple, logical and linear. Court, however, was nothing like I was expecting. I had a sort of civilized 'Perry Mason' picture of court in my head. It was not like that at all. We had just a few hours to present our case. The judge, who had appointed himself to hear the case, announced at the start of our court appearance that he had not read our factum and evidence at all. He directed our lawyer 'to explain it'to him. He did not listen to much. Instead he shouted at and insulted our lawyer, cracked jokes at our expense, mugged for the press in the galley and roared statements that had been in the press and Warner evidence like ' Isn't this a publicity stunt by your clients?'. I was horrified. My lawyer didn't make much headway into our evidence at all. I'd watch him square his shoulders under his heavy robes after every rebuke and insult, widen his stance, say 'Yes, Your Honour...If You Please, Your Honour...', and try to make headway into a few more sentences. It was painful to watch, like watching some brute kick a puppy around the block. I couldn't understand why, if the judge had truly not read our evidence, he seemed so intent on not allowing my lawyer to present our case. During a break, a reporter asked me how I felt about our hearing. When I replied that I was feeling very victimized, he retorted: " What did you expect? Taking on a giant...pffft..." The sense all around was very strongly that I should have no expectation of equality when standing up to wealth. In fact, the sense was that I was stupid for being innocent enough to expect any differently.
Since Then...
There has been a lot of courtroom shenanigans going on over the past couple of years. For instance, the original judge recused himself for bias and then reinserted himself to award costs against us. The costs were $140,000.00. That's a lot of coin and something I was not prepared for. Courts and lawyers are very expensive and I have blown all of my savings and remortgaged my home. Servers have showed up at my foster home with papers called 'Examination in aid of execution' and 'contempt of court' for me. WB came through a legal backdoor to Manitoba and put judgements on my property, even though we're appealing those costs in Ontario. My poor sister's house is one of the properties with a judgement against it.
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