Subscribe to HJ's RSS Feed
myspace is mos def not cool
March 29th, 2006I like the Yah Mos Def. A lot. They’ve always been super nice to me, to Plain Parade and all that good stuff. Needless to say, I’m totally annoyed by Myspace’s ineptitude on this. I know there’s a couple of lawyer types who read this, perhaps you can give them some advice/assistance? They’re not the first people I know on Myspace to deal with this via customer service and receive nothing back from the company.
Crap like this makes me happy to know I made the right decision in never using Myspace to aid in Plain Parade’s business dealings. [You have no idea how many bands write us there, even though we explictly state “Don’t write to us here!”] I was just perusing our email archives the other day and noticed they go back to 2003. Myspace doesn’t even come close to that.
From: Bryan
Ok..I don’t know if anyone out there has any advice they can lend.
Here is my problem. They keep canceling THE YAH MOS DEF account. Here is the email I get..
“Hello,
MySpace has deleted your profile because we received a credible complaint of copyright/trademark infringement or otherwise determined that materials posted on your profile violated the intellectual property rights of third parties.
MySpace’s terms and conditions prohibit the posting of any materials that infringe upon the intellectual property rights of third parties.
If we delete your account you cannot recover it.
Thank you,
MySpace.com”Thing is we own the trademark for the band name, have rights to all the samples we used and put on the site. We OWN the federal trademark for “The Yah Mos Def”. But we have been deleted 3 times now. I wrote their customer service email a bunch of times, but got no response. Stinks because we lost contacts, our show history, and a bunch of other info that would have been cool to have long term.
It rotten because MYSPACE is a free service and there is pretty much no customer service. We were not mis-using the site in anyway, and found it a very useful and resourceful tool.
Just thought if anyone had any insight to how to handle something like this??
March 29th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
I assume this is due to having a similar name to Mos Def. MySpace is probably covering its ass. Unfortunately, I doubt the band has the major label lawyers to fight the issue. Perhaps they could put their name as Yah M0s D3f? Or consider a name change?
April 1st, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Howdy… I’m one of those shysters MTS mentioned, as well as a sometime visitor to Ice Station Solomon and the dearly-departed Holder Broadcasting Complex. Hate to say it, but our heroes on the Delaware appear to be in a sticky situation. [DISCLAIMER — this is not legal advice and I am not acting as YMD’s attorney. I am simply analyzing certain information as presented — additional facts could lead to a different outcome. I and my future malpractice insurer thank you for understanding.]
YMD’s federal trademark application has barely begun its trip through the “examination” gauntlet. They claim a date of first use in February 2005. Unfortunately, The Other Guy started using MOS DEF back in 1993 (according to his federal applications) — a significantly earlier date of first use. In the US, trademark rights are based on use, not registration.
In general, YAH is not enough to dispel the overlapping MOS DEF elements, especially when both parties are using the mark for the same overall services. It’s also hard to says that YMD hadn’t heard of MOS DEF when they came up with the name. If MOS DEF had only a limited regional presence, and YMD independently used its name in a separate (and far away) space, then YMD might have a claim to continue using its name in the Delaware Valley.
MySpace probably received a “notice and takedown” letter from The Other Guy’s attorneys. MySpace has no incentive to get involved in trademark disputes between or on behalf of its users. And as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NewsCorp / Fox / Murdoch empire, end users shouldn’t expect any more notice than the e-mails YMD has apparently received.
If YMD had a stronger trademark claim, it could use that to assert its right to continue using its name on MySpace. In this case, the goal should be to retrieve the valuable account information. The logical tradeoff is a promise that YMD won’t create another MySpace account using the YAH MOS DEF name or anything “confusingly similar” (like a leet-speak translation). Just don’t expect much help from the front-line customer service automailer. It’ll take a little more pushing to get to a real person — but I would be fairly confident that MySpace hasn’t deleted all the data yet. Their Terms of Service are probably little more than “use at your own risk,” but they may want to preserve some kind of goodwill with the underground music community.
In the long run, I’m afraid that YMD’s federal trademark registration is in trouble. The Other Guy has four earlier-filed applications, all with earlier dates of first use, all of which are tied up pending moves to cancel someone else’s earlier federal registration for a “confusingly similar” mark. [The finer points of federal trademark registration are a discussion for another day — this comment’s too long already.]
April 5th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
this is really useful! thanks!