Trademarks, similarly to copyrights, are a form of protection. They tend to protect anything that’s used to brand a good or service. In terms of the music industry, you can protect your name, as well as your logo, song titles, and phrases included in your lyrics or symbols.

As a form of identifier, trademarks are used to help people identify the source of the product or the service. Trademarks aim to prevent any unfair competition, such as someone causing confusion by having a name/logo/slogan similar to yours or entirely the same.

This means that trademark protection legally reassures artists that no other musicians or bands can take advantage of particular identifying factors to confuse the buying public. It may for instance happen that another band performs under the same name as you do, causing misunderstandings among your fans. Instead of buying tickets to your gig, they may mistakenly buy tickets to the other band’s concert. In such a case, trademarking the band’s name will prevent you from encountering such situations.

No. It is not compulsory to do so and many artists never do so. However, if you’re serious about a recording career and have your sights set on big success in the music industry, it may be a good idea. If you don’t and someone else comes along after you and trademarks the same name as yours, they may be able to stop you using your name to make music.

If you’ve already had thousands of downloads and garnered hundreds of followers on each social media channel, this is a problem. You may be made to stop using your name and fans will struggle to find you.  

So if you do decide to trademark your name, the sooner you do it the better. Depending on your name a duplicate scenario may be unlikely though. We’ll take a look at who should and shouldn’t be trademarking their name, shortly.  

Just like trademarks, copyrights, too, are a type of property protection.

Copyrights are used to protect the creative, original works of art and provide the rights to artistic works that have been created through a tangible medium, such as digital track, tape, disk, or other formats.

They are essential for the protection of almost any type of artistic expression. These are namely, in the context of music, sound recordings, and musical compositions, but also lyrics, melodies, arrangements, performances, etc.

While copyrights tend to protect the artistic side of intellectual property, trademarks protect their commercial side aligned with the law.

More importantly, however, trademarks are used to protect the unique and specific identification of a brand in our case, the artist or the band, and the product. meaning their name, the album’s or song’s name, slogan, logo, etc. Meanwhile, copyright in music shall prevent unauthorized copying, reproduction, or distribution of a specific piece of work.

Additionally, copyright is generated automatically upon the creation of work. However, one needs to take additional steps to ensure that the copyright is enforced. (Note: this very much depends on where you are based - e.g in Europe, no further registration is required to enforce the copyright protections, but in the USA, you need to register the copyright with the Copyright Office). Trademark protection needs to be applied for.

Although the duration of trademark protection can vary, the most common duration period is 10 years. Afterward, the validity of the trademark can be prolonged indefinitely as long as the trademark is still used in commerce. You will need to pay renewal fees to prolong the validity of your trademark.

Sometimes it happens that the trademark owner decides not to use the trademark anymore. In such a case, after three years of not being used in commerce, the trademark falls through, after being presumed abandoned.