A warning to tribute bands...

[AnotherScott]

I've only done a couple of ML songs (Paradise by the Dashboard Lights, 2 out of 3), but not only aren't they the same as each other, they also have noticeably more different changes and progressions *within* them than typical pop songs.

[Griffinator]

There are very few bands that I would even consider doing a tribute night of...

 

Steely Dan

Moody Blues

Deep Purple

Yes

Tower of Power

 

 

Definitely not Meat Loaf!

 

I dunno about Meat Loaf, but I suspect if someone waved a steady paycheck of $500 or more per night in your face, you'd probably jump on a tribute band(wagon)...

[therealvicz]

Hey, Meat went to the same high school that I did! Meat Loaf has created a whole musical theater thing. Really, if the tribute-meister is making money off Meat's intellectual property, then the suit reached a correct result. Tribute bands really should consider the down side. This is no "lawyer troll" thing. $25,000 is not much for this kind of litigation. The tribute-meister ought to pay up and go back to work.

 

You don't need anyone's permission to perform their songs or have to pay them anything. If the venue charges for admission the royalties are covered by their prs license or equivalent.

 

I agree it sounds more like a trademark/ domain name issue, but even there it is not clear cut. Meatloaf is obviously not his real name and you can't trademark a generic term (ie spelled normally) except maybe as a specific image in a distinctive script or logo. Similarly for domain names its a difficult argument to win (maybe it could be a recipe site?)

 

So ML would have to argue that there was intention to deceive and he had or may suffer financial or other loss. It is unlikely that this could be resolved conclusively in a minor court so the lawyers are trolls IMHO because they are relying on the cost and risk of opposing them to intimidate the performer into settling for a modest but not trivial amount. In this case the judgement is irrelevant unless the artist has some assets in the US. But there are many US based cover band artists visiting here who should hope this legal bullying doesn't catch on.

[EscapeRocks]

 

Rather, the thrust of the suit seems to be cybersquatting and impersonation with intent to mislead.

 

 

Neal pretty much said this when we spoke. We met at the International Guitar convention in Dallas a couple years ago.

Again, he was cool with us, since we take great measures to NOT mislead. We've even gotten some mechanical licenses to legally record some of his music.

[bluesdisciple]

Most tribute bands I have seen don't use artwork from the original artists albums or their actual name as part of their acts name ( I.e., Dark Star Orchestra, Cosmic Charlie, Revival). They clearly state they are a tribute band and their website URL can't be confused with the original bands website. If they use artist icons, such as the Grateful Deads lightening bolt, Steal Your Face skull or Dancing Bears, they do so with permission. This bloke evidently cut it a mite too close.

 

As far as bands I would play in a tribute band:

 

Grateful Dead

Allman Brothers

Bruce Springsteen

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Southern Rock (all the various bands)

Dr. John

 

bd

[wmp]

In the battle of the crybaby bitches, I side with Mr. Loaf this time. I'd be pretty creeped out if Mr. Torkington lost a few more pounds and did a wmp tribute band with wussy backing tracks. It's good to be a nobody. People die of exposure.

 

I don't know the real details. The article is Mr. Torkington's point of view from his hometown press. Even from that perspective, Mr. Loaf seems to have some valid points. The domain name should be his and that's all he's likely to get out of it. Mr. Torkington should repaint his van. Winning an award in court isn't the same thing as collecting the money. That's fantasy math. Mr. Loaf paid to make his point. The law works in mysterious ways. Owning something doesn't mean you own it. My nephew had to shut down some kids using his corporation's registered trademark name recently. Xerox becoming the legal generic name for a photo copy was my favorite landmark trademark case. The Businessland Computerland lawsuit was pretty funny. Other than that, I never heard of either company.

 

[Losendoskeys]

Not worried

 

As far as Genesis tributes are concerned, Genesis SUPPORT tributes and regularly attend or even play (well Steve Hackett anyway) at tribute gigs.

[AnotherScott]

Xerox becoming the legal generic name for a photo copy was my favorite landmark trademark case.

I think they did ultimately maintain protection of the word, though. But the need to actually make sure people know something is a trademark in order to maintain that protection has resulted in annoyances like the fact that every Jeep radio commercial for years has had to end with "Jeep is a registered trademark or Chrysler Coprporation" or what-not. Imagine if every radio commercial had to end with a tag that listed every registered trademark...

[Jaime Chimuelo]

The very first tributes I saw were in Reno and Las Vegas, Joan Rivers is still performing nightly.

The Rod Stewart guy fizzed out in the late '90s but employed lots of my friends over the years.

This town is nothing but tributes, but they are wise and pay tribute to the Agents/Lawyers though.

25 large to the those you emulate is cheap.

I smell a new trend.

Let them work and draw weekly royalties for you. Especially when you're like so many of these older Stars and can no longer perform or do not wish to.

If you wish to avoid legal ramifications you can always be wise and emulate an era.

There's plenty of money for everyone, no need for cackling Hens/lawyers, etc.

 

[Tonysounds]

Theyre all trolls.

 

Torkington had www.meatloaf.org , so obviously .com was taken. (And it is, by meat loafor rather, it leads to a selection of meat loaf recipe websites.) Mr. Loaf didnt own it, or couldnt get it at the time, so he was stuck with www.meatloaf.net. Not as sexy as .com, but so be it. Since Tork had been using .org for a number of years actively, hes not exactly guilty of squatting (especially since there was no mention of him trying to extort money or sell that domain to Loaf). So the judge erred.

 

Painting a van with Bat Out Of Hell artwork is no crime. How many vans had you seen in the 70s with Dark Side of the Moon painted on them?

 

Tribute bands regularly appropriate their inspirations artwork and music (after all, its a tribute), and unless Tork was really representing himself as Loaf, the judge erred again. Since we cant see the offending website anymore (www.meatloaf.org now directs to meatloaf.net) well have to leave that one up in the air. Tribute bands using a form of their inspirations name or famous work as their own name is nothing new, and again, is just an obvious standard procedure. My Pink Floyd band is called Pink Freud (though I thought about calling it Pink Fraud.and may end up doing that in the future if the need ever arises). Meanwhile, there are others like Crazy Diamond, In The Flesh, Eclipse which are easy to associate with Floyd; Echoes of Pink Floyd is a no brainer; Comfortably Numb is terrible. A bigger offense to me is The Australian Pink Floyd Show, or The British Pink Floyd Show. All these bands use Floyd imagery. My band doesnt, but to be honest, Im not emotionally nor artistically invested in it. If I were really trying to make it successful, theres a lot of things Id turn around, but frankly, while I enjoy playing music with my friends in that band, I just have no desire to be someone else. I know its hypocritical to play covers but think being in a tribute is parasitical, but to me at least, there really is a point where it becomes just.weird. But I digress.as usual.

Unless the tribute is really trying to pass themselves off as the real deal, the judge is wrong.

 

And its all a moot point anyway: the US ruling has no real bearing on a Brit, although its obvious Tork gave up the website.

 

And if hes a track artist, he should be put down on principle!

 

[AnotherScott]

Painting a van with Bat Out Of Hell artwork is no crime. How many vans had you seen in the 70s with Dark Side of the Moon painted on them?

That would probably be a copyright violation... but not anything anyone would go after unless perhaps they were using it for a commercial purpose.

 

At any rate, based on the article, the decision seemed to be simply based on the domain. The van and the rest seems somewhat incidental. If it came into play in the case at all, it was probably only because of the ambiguous nature of "meatloaf." That is, since "ipad" is a trademark of an invented word, Apple would clearly have rights to claim ipad-dot-anything but since "meatloaf" can have alternate meanings, Mr. Loaf cannot make a claim on meatloaf-dot-anything (as alluded to, he could not shut down a meat loaf recipe domain)... he would have to specifically show that the user of the domain was trying to capitalize on his own usage of "meatloaf." As far as I can tell, the court made no judgment about the van painting itself.

 

Though also, when you start talking about "how many vans..." and such... there are lots of times where many individual pieces of a situation are, by themselves, permissible, but the sum total of all of them in aggregate are sufficient to put something over the line into something actionable.

[HammondDave]

Tribute Bands... Weird...

 

I agree with Tony that there is a line here. Somewhere between playing the music you love (tribute) and actually believing that you are Jim Morrison (insanity). There is a Led Zep tribute band here in L.A. who supported my band a couple of years ago. They would show up and load their equipment in. Most of the guys were bald... Then they would go into the dressing room and come out in full 1970 rock star regalia with WIGS! That's right...

 

I think that's where my line is drawn. For if they were just dressed as themselves, the audience appreciates them for their musical performance (and they were excellent)... But trying to imitate what the band looked like... Well... That's weird...

 

And no, I would not do that for $500... Maybe $1,000..

 

But maybe this may all catch on and mark the end of when a club owner could tell you that they could hire a tribute band and make more money for him than your original band.,.

 

 

 

[CEB]

I knew an Elvis impersonator who either 1) had a super dry sense of humor who life mission was to prank the world or 2) He was nuts and thought he was Elvis.

[RABid]

I'd love to be in a Santana or Heart tribute band. Meatloaf tribute band? At least the gigs would be quick. 4 songs and you are done for the night.

[Joe Muscara]

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhDzHALv2Po

[CEB]

I'd love to be in a Santana or Heart tribute band. Meatloaf tribute band? At least the gigs would be quick. 4 songs and you are done for the night.

Yeah but each song is about 30 minutes long. LOL!

[Tonysounds]

Elvis guys are the worst (in terms of blurring the line between the real Elvis, and their inner Elvis). Every Elvis guy I have ever met has been nuts. Thank you; thank you very much.

 

They are followed by Santana guys. Every Santana guy I have ever met has referred to himself in the 3rd person, really thinks he IS Santana (regardless of his race); and the worst of the lot (a guy I played with for 7 years because we had assembled a monster band, and I had managed it into a succe$$ful business employing 10 of us) actually used the words innovative and groundbreaking when referring to his music. (His meaning his, not Carlos.) I threw a chair at him and told him it was for his own good. Sadly, he moved out of the way and escaped injury.and a possible cure. In true paradoxical fashion, he informed me that I just didnt see it as innovative and groundbreaking because it was so far advanced, that I couldnt comprehend it, but that if I could understand it, I would see how . (and Im pretty sure he was referring to his music, not his delusion)

 

Yeah, thats the funny thing about mental illness: defending yourself makes you seem crazier.

 

[mate stubb]

Yeah, but each song lasts an hour.

 

I once played on the same bill as a Doors tribute band. We played When The Music's Over during sound check to piss them off.

 

The singer spent an hour staring at himself in the mirror and picking at his hair, getting himself psyched up enough to bring some crazy to his Jim impersonation.

[Tonysounds]

I'd love to be in a Santana or Heart tribute band. Meatloaf tribute band? At least the gigs would be quick. 4 songs and you are done for the night.

 

I dont get the Heart thing, but as mentioned above, I was in a Santana tribute. I knew next to nothing about Santana, other than the radio, and the Zebop! album I had bought in high school. I had seen him once, and really dug it.

 

I hooked up with the nutcase because he hired me to put some bass on his demo; the engineer he was working with told him I was a keyboardist (Santana only knew me as a bassist from jam nights), and he put the full court press on me to help him put this thing together. I knew nothing about latin music, but he had a world class conguero who is still (while a complete sociopath) one of the best musicians I have ever met in my entire life. Through him, and through me, we built a killer band. I didnt know it then, but we had a smoking jamband. We could turn things inside out, segue from anything to anything (unrehearsed) because we had a real chemistry, and 7 guys who truly had big ears. It made putting up with Santana easy.for a while. But the point is, that music didnt feel like a tribute band. Wed be playing rock, then reggae, then salsa, then cha chas, then a tango, then some fusion.the music was all over the place, and of course, it was a keyboard players dream to play some screaming Hammond one minute, then a wicked 2 hand montuno the next. My favorite rig of all time was in that band: Chopped B3 (I had 2!), with an A90 on top, 2 shortboy leslies, each sitting on top of a 16sp Mesa Boogie rack filled with Oberheim, Korg, Roland and Yamaha modules. Great stuff to comp to, great stuff to solo over, and the band we had.yeah, it was pretty fn great. I wasnt embarrassed to be in that tribute cuz we would tear heads off; everybody was a player, a real soloist, and knew how to hold it down. I felt bad for the lead vocalist always.hed sing for a couple minutes, and then have time to take a shower while we played. As a concession, I constructed a killer Motown/Soul set that would get him some star time of his own, and with the percussionists, we could really amp up the groove on those songs.

 

Yeah, I get playing in a Santana tribute.the Heart thing, not so much.

 

[J. Dan]

Yeah, I get playing in a Santana tribute.the Heart thing, not so much.

 

If you were a heavy chick with a great voice, you'd feel differently.

[CEB]

Closest I would want to get to a tribute band would be a band that covered. Chicago/ Blood Sweat & Tears/ Ides of March/ Tower of Power etc... There is no one doing that sort of thing around here but it isn't easy paying a 7 to 11 man band.

[RABid]

Heart - granted there is not a lot for keyboardists. I loved playing drums to heart songs in my early bands. There is a LOT of good material. Barracuda is a great opening song. In my last band as a drummer, long ago, we opened with Barracuda -> Straight On -> Heartless -> Even it Up -> Tell it Like it Is.

[PinkFloydDudi]

Tribute Bands... Weird...

 

I agree with Tony that there is a line here. Somewhere between playing the music you love (tribute) and actually believing that you are Jim Morrison (insanity). There is a Led Zep tribute band here in L.A. who supported my band a couple of years ago. They would show up and load their equipment in. Most of the guys were bald... Then they would go into the dressing room and come out in full 1970 rock star regalia with WIGS! That's right...

 

I think that's where my line is drawn. For if they were just dressed as themselves, the audience appreciates them for their musical performance (and they were excellent)... But trying to imitate what the band looked like... Well... That's weird...

 

And no, I would not do that for $500... Maybe $1,000..

 

But maybe this may all catch on and mark the end of when a club owner could tell you that they could hire a tribute band and make more money for him than your original band.,.

 

 

 

A lot depends on how much the look is part of the band. Sorry, but a KISS tribute without costumes and makeup would just suck.

[PinkFloydDudi]

Seems like most people are getting it now...but the beginning of this thread misses the mark. This is not a "tribute bands beware" ruling...this is a "don't try to steal someone's identity" thing.

The lawsuit was mostly about the website, not that he was doing a tribute act of him. One could easily be mislead and go check out meatloaf.org thinking that is the official website. It isn't "squatting" by definition, but it is pretty close.

 

The money settlement is stupid. The only thing I agree with on this is that they made him give up the website.

 

Some tribute bands focus on the music above all else. Others go for the "whole show", which may involve getting into character and actually acting and dressing like the person.

 

In my DMB tribute, we do not go out of our way to dress like members of the band, although our singer does look like him and somewhat dress like him naturally. We do some things for show, such as our drummer chewing gum and blowing bubbles while playing like Carter Beuford does, but some fans absolutely love that he does that, others don't notice.

 

I do chuckle about people who say "i would never be in a tribute band" then follow links to their sites where I hear/see them playing Mustang Sally. Way to keep the bar set high folks. lol.

[stillplaying]

@Tonysounds

 

Can I have "Pink Fraud" please? Two of the guys have been back on at me to have another go with them at a Floyd tribute band - I was on here getting help and advice two years back.

 

BTW - my list of Tribute bands that I've learned sets for:

 

Meat Loaf - oh yes - first mistake, learned the whole set before meeting "Meat" - looked the part but ...

 

Funk Tribute Act - OMG, singer was Stevie Wonder vocally but ... never mind

 

The Surrogate Pink Floyd Show - don't know why their last keyboard player left, they'd lights, inflatable pig, girl backing vocalists, all live arrangements including sax - snow killed rehearsals.

 

Bruce Springsteen Tribute Band - this "Bruce" was born to run something else

[opdigits]

In looking at the screen grabs from the news article I see that Mr. Torkington had a link to a "Merchandise" section on his site. It does not specify whether the "merchandise" being sold contained any proprietary "real Meatloaf" products, such as t-shirts with meatloaf logos or CDs with meatloaf songs or such, nor whether the merchandise was sold without legal licensing, but if that was the case, then I fully understand the lawsuit. IMO that would take the matter squarely across the line in not being simply a "tribute."

 

I believe that recouping costs plus making a living through paying tribute to any artist is symbiotic as you are actually helping to drive sales for the artist you are paying tribute to. More than likely attendees to your tribute act will go out and buy the artists CD if you so move them through your tribute.

 

But selling unlicensed merchandise containing proprietary elements of the original artist would be illegal IMO. If you HAVE legally obtained licensing to sell such merchandise you would not be breaking any laws.

 

In addition, if you make money passing yourself off AS the original artist you should get what's coming to you. However, it was quite clear to me from viewing those screen grabs that Mr. Torkington's site and his act WAS a tribute. If he lost the suit solely on this element I believe it was wrongfully awarded. Perhaps older iterations of the site did not contain the words "a tribute to."

 

I should think that now there is a precedent, current tribute bands should take the safe road and consult with legal counsel to determine if their merchandising and advertising efforts do cross any lines. Better to pay the piper through a percentage of your sales than to be caused to go into bankruptcy after the fact.

[opdigits]

Are lawyers in countries outside of the US not trolls?

[J. Dan]

Are lawyers in countries outside of the US not trolls?

 

Doesn't sound like this one was a case of lawyers trolling for lawsuits, sounds like this one was squarely pursued by Meatloaf.

 

 

On the side comments regarding tribute bands, dressing up, wigs, etc. This comes up a lot, and I used to catch a lot of heat on here for wearing a wig in my old band, which was an 80s tribute. A lot of people think one thing is directly related to another - like if you dress up, it must mean that you aren't talented enough to be good without dressing up. Or if you are good, somehow because you dress up, it diminishes it. I understand people's aversion to things that seem cheesy. I also understand that there are people out there who try to make up for their lack of skill with excessive show. But this isn't specific to dressing up, or wigs. People buy excessive gear/technology, get huge light shows and smoke machines, whatever. I tend to compartmentalize things a bit more and treat them as they are intended:

 

1) You're good or you aren't. If you're a tribute, and your goal is to sound like the original, and you do - you can't really be any better without NOT sounding like the original...which gets into a whole other thing. Then you aren't a tribute.

2) Once you've mastered #1, if you want to step up your game in terms of entertaining, you have to look at the show: lights, props, stage activity, wardrobe, video, etc.

3) All of the items listed in #2 should only be used to the extent that they enhance the show, not distract - here's where many people have a valid argument in criticizing the whole dressing up thing. But I think if it's done tastefully to add to the show, there's nothing wrong. The nature of the tribute has a lot to do with this. Incidentally, lights and other things can distract from the show as well.

 

One piece of the show doesn't cancel out another. I big light show doesn't make a musician less talented any more than a wig does. But it can distract from the audience recognizing the talent if it overwelms the over all experience. I think there's a balance, and it's definitely context related in terms of the tribute. Nobody criticizes a beatles tribute for looking like the beatles. But people are criticized all the time for looking like an 80s hair band. Part of the tribute is not just the music, it's also the fashion and other pop culture of the era. You can do each of those parts well or poorly.

[therealvicz]

Are lawyers in countries outside of the US not trolls?

 

I didn't mean to imply that only US lawyers are trolls. Lawyers are like politicians in that they are the same breed the world over. But abusing process by bullying people and small companies who can't afford to fight back does seem to be predominantly an American phenomenon, such as in this case

 

OT but interesting

[wmp]

I have a lawyer who isn't a troll. She's great for wills, trusts, real estate transactions, contracts, keeping my papers in order, and playing nice. In other words, she's useless.

 

I think the Brits call lawyers solicitors, which is plenty appropriate considering how we use that word in the US. Solicitors are usually defendants in our courts, but not always.