Sunday, April 5, 2009

Bon Jovi sues tribute band

Okay, so that title's not strictly true, but it's the headline that Undercover used. :P

According to this article, Bon Jovi lawyers threatened to sue all-girl tribute band Blonde Jovi for breaching the band's trademark rights.

A legal letter from the law firm Blakely Sokoloff Taylor & Zafman to the girl group Blonde Jovi has surfaced and states, “It has recently come to our attention that your band is using the mark and name BLONDE JOVI in connection with live musical performances; more specifically, a Bon Jovi tribute band. Our investigation also uncovered that you are using BJP’s “Heart and Dagger” Logo trademark prominently on your website. Unfortunately, and despite the fact that our client appreciates the reverence that your band pays tribute to Bon Jovi, as a tribute band, our client nevertheless is charged with the duty of enforcing its trademark rights. In this regard, BJP cannot allow your band to use the mark and name BLONDE JOVI (or any other BJP trademarks), as such use creates a likelihood of confusion with our client, and capitalizes on the goodwill and reputation of its well-known marks”.


Here's an extract from Blonde Jovi's MySpace blog:
Due to threatened legal action by Jon Bon Jovi's attorneys, we will be changing our name. The name BLONDE JERSEY is temporary, until we come up with a new one. If you have any name suggestions, please email us! Nothing containing JOVI, or anything similar to JOVI may be used so BLONDE GIOVI, BLONDE JOE V, BLONDE JOVIE, are not options. Thanks for your support!


There must be hundreds of Bon Jovi tribute bands, many of them using names, images and fonts associated with the band, so what's so wrong about this one? Maybe I'm missing part of the story but this seems like a thoroughly ridiculous situation. Or maybe we need to think twice about the way we pay homage to our idols in future. :\

1 comment:

  1. Interesting! I thought that there were plenty of tribute bands that had a similar name. The names are escaping me at the moment but I am curious to see why this one is being specifically targeted.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for giving me your time.