Name: the soft focus 2009-05-01 1:18
I'm in a band called The Soft Focus (google us), and apparently, Ian from Black Lips has a side project he calls the SOFT FOCUS. It seems he doesn't like the idea of sharing a name. So he sent us a few messages recently:
First message:
Subj: your name kinda sucks.
Message: Watch your back. ha ha ha, I a n
Second Message:
Subj: p.s.
Message: i'm not kidding.
Vague threats of physical violence aside, we weren't too worried. So we changed our headline to "Not worried about our backs," and posted a picture of our new friend. He took notice and again sent us a message:
Subj:I never worry either
Message: not my best photo but thanks ,I
At this point it seemed like he'd calmed down a bit, so we decided this would be a good time to be clever and send a message back (our first to him):
Subj: RE: I never worry either
Message: Just take us on a Black Lips tour and we'll call it even.
Turns out Ian isn't one for clever. A few hours later we got another threat:
Subject:RE: I never worry either
Message: the only soft focus that is gonna go on tour with the black lips is my side project. I'll get my lawyer to fill you in. take care,
Thats when I decided to let the internet know.
We're not worried about legal action, since we do own the domain thesoftfocus.com, we have a higher ranking in google, and we've played shows under that name. To his credit, Ian did register his myspace a month before we did, but does registering a myspace account give someone a trademark? If so I can think of a ton of other band names I should register just to lock them down in case I want to use one in the future. I also checked the national registry of trademarks. Nothing.
So anyway, Ian's an asshole, and we're the soft focus. The End, for now...
First message:
Subj: your name kinda sucks.
Message: Watch your back. ha ha ha, I a n
Second Message:
Subj: p.s.
Message: i'm not kidding.
Vague threats of physical violence aside, we weren't too worried. So we changed our headline to "Not worried about our backs," and posted a picture of our new friend. He took notice and again sent us a message:
Subj:I never worry either
Message: not my best photo but thanks ,I
At this point it seemed like he'd calmed down a bit, so we decided this would be a good time to be clever and send a message back (our first to him):
Subj: RE: I never worry either
Message: Just take us on a Black Lips tour and we'll call it even.
Turns out Ian isn't one for clever. A few hours later we got another threat:
Subject:RE: I never worry either
Message: the only soft focus that is gonna go on tour with the black lips is my side project. I'll get my lawyer to fill you in. take care,
Thats when I decided to let the internet know.
We're not worried about legal action, since we do own the domain thesoftfocus.com, we have a higher ranking in google, and we've played shows under that name. To his credit, Ian did register his myspace a month before we did, but does registering a myspace account give someone a trademark? If so I can think of a ton of other band names I should register just to lock them down in case I want to use one in the future. I also checked the national registry of trademarks. Nothing.
So anyway, Ian's an asshole, and we're the soft focus. The End, for now...