Who Owns A Band's Name

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Stone Temple Pilots accuse former frontman Scott Weiland of misusing the band's name to further his solo career and want a judge to strip the rocker of his ability to use the group's name or songs.

A lawsuit filed Friday in Los Angeles accuses Weiland of being chronically late to concerts while the group was together and having his lawyer attempt to interfere with the airplay of the group's new single "Out of Time."

Who does own the name to a band? Usually it's whoever bothered to take out a trademark on the name and usually that is the band's management or their record company. If no one actually legally laid a claim to the name then it's whoever is known to have used the name first. If your band is called Stone Temple Pilots and you're from Albuquerque, New Mexico and you've been together and releasing material (using the name actively) since the 1970s you can legally use your name in New Mexico and Scott's band may have a tough time breaking that particular market.

But what happens when a founding band member is fired or quits? Axel Rose got to keep the name Guns & Roses but that band seemed to break up completely and his surname is in the title. In the case of Stone Temple Pilots, like Journey and Genesis, the band continued intact without the lead singer and continued using their name.

I don't think Scott Weiland can be stopped from using Stone Temple Pilots' songs, even I can perform or record Stone Temple Pilots songs once they've been published but if he's using the band name such as Scott Weiland and The Stone Temple Pilots in concerts or on records that's kind of like me calling my new animation studio Neal Warner's Klasky-Csupo Production. It is this part of the Weiland / STP lawsuit I'll be closely watching as I think Neal Warner's Klasky-Csupo Production has a real nice ring to it.

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