Legal advice wanted: Artist name

[Andy Collier]

I wonder if you could help me with a query relating to the music industry...

A friend of mine is a solo singer, very talented, and looking to get signed
by a record company.

However, he shares his name with an already-established singer.

Can he still perform under his current name, or would he have to go under
another name? I know in the acting profession you can't have two people of
the same name, which is why a lot of actors use stage-names, but is it the
same for singers?

For example, if my friend was called Craig David, can he perform (live
appearances, release CDs etc) under the name Craig David, or would that be
infringing some sort of copyright that the record label of the other Craig
David would have? In this example, could my friend combine the 2 words and
be known as "craigdavid" ?

If he couldn't use his real name, as another singer already has it, could he
use a middle initial, for example "Craig J. David" ? What if he just called
himself "Craig" ?

I hope someone can help, as we want to get some publicity material together,
but we need to know where we stand on the name before we design logos etc.

Many thanks,
Andy

[Dom Robinson]

In article <b6cnfs$e4f$1...@titan.btinternet.com>, an...@andymcr.co.uk says...

> For example, if my friend was called Craig David, can he perform (live
> appearances, release CDs etc) under the name Craig David, or would that be
> infringing some sort of copyright that the record label of the other Craig
> David would have? In this example, could my friend combine the 2 words and
> be known as "craigdavid" ?
>
> If he couldn't use his real name, as another singer already has it, could he
> use a middle initial, for example "Craig J. David" ? What if he just called
> himself "Craig" ?
>

I don't know about a legal point of view, although if it's his name I couldn't
see a problem from that side of things, but I'd have thought more that you
don't want him confused with another artist at all, so I'd change the name to
something different. Perhaps swap the first two names round, so he would be
James David?
--

Dom Robinson dom at dvdfever dot co dot uk
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