And I would only add, for the record, that since Ms. White was clearly "prior in time", in making her first commercial use of the name Lady A onstage (circa 1998, it seems), her so-called "common law" trademark allows (at a minimum) that she may use the name, forever, as a regional blues/soul artist. If she can establish that the country group's move is likely to cause confusion among blues/soul music consumers, nationwide. . . she at least has a shot of overturning the country group's 2010 era registered mark in DC.
But aside from the actual law, here -- the object lesson here is clear: if you are a white country group that is earnestly, honestly trying to distance yourself from what many Americans see as a slave-holding prior branding. . . it would be wiser. . . to be more humble, and less. . . litigious. Doubly so, where the person you sued is a black woman who has struggled for thirty years to build a nationwide brand, out of HER OWN DAMN NAME. Just because you sold some tee-shirts with "Lady-A" on them since 2010. . . you don't get to push her around, or demand that she do an infomercial for your would-be "woken-ness".
If the real Lady A's current CD sells well enough (I've bought mine!), she might apply a little money to filing a formal trademark opposition, at the USPTO, and from there -- on to the federal district courthouse, in Washington, DC. In any event, here's the Billboard piece -- and a bit:
. . . .Lady A says she had gotten on the phone several times with the country trio and their legal representatives, who she says offered to help her rebrand and suggested they all record a song together or participate in a documentary about the issue before negotiations fell apart. So far, she says she doesn't see what the group is giving up in the bargain.
"I’m not going to do this song and dance for you to make you woke, then when the smoke clears I still have nothing," White says. "Because that is what happens to us and that wasn’t going to happen. Everybody needs to be forgiven, they need to change their name. Everybody makes mistakes, I am not perfect. If they can do that? Sure, I would love… I don’t hold any animosity towards them, I am just going to hold their feet to the fire of their statement."
When Lady Antebellum dropped the second half of their name June 11 to remove a sullied Civil War association in response to the national racial reckoning in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, they bumped up against the artist who had long been using that name. . . .
"I don’t have big business behind me. I don’t have big money behind me. I started out like any other artists starts out: I started singing in three-four bands, I was doing karaoke, when I started Lady A and the Baby Blues Funk Band we were just a party band doing our thing.
I was grabbing gigs here and there, working a day job, I was doing what people do, I was hustling and doing what I needed to do to be an artist. . . ."
I love that the real Lady A was going to donate half of what the country group should have paid for the name to BLM related causes. That's where the country group showed its truer colors -- it would not pay market rate, for the name. [In view of that evidence, hopefully the Nashville federal district court will order them to pay hefty annual royalties to Ms. White, in order to have the continued right to use it as the name of the band.]
So, here's to the REAL Lady A; and the other three. . . are pure pretenders. Race-Grifters. Know that history will write them down that way, no matter how the federal litigation in Nashville turns out, now. Onward, grinning wryly (with my own baby girl coming home, tonight). . . .
नमस्ते
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