Standing up to Simon Cowell
Rhythmix, one of the UK’s leading music charities, was recently involved in a very public spat with the TV programme X Factor regarding the use of its name by one of its acts.
Although this may have appeared a relatively trivial matter (many of our friends and colleagues suggested that the publicity generated was possibly the main factor, and a beneficial one at that), it was actually a fairly serious and challenging legal issue for us, which raises many questions about trademarks and identity for charities.
The charity held a fairly robust legal position with regards to ownership of a trademark and established historical usage of its name. What many people don't realise (it was certainly news to us), is that this does not prevent commercial entities from seeking to use the same name, nor, as was the case in this instance, prevent them from seeking legal means to guarantee their own right to use and exploit the name - even if that might over-ride or conflict with the existing trademark holder's rights.
In this case, the TV programme sought the exclusive rights to trademark usage of the name in areas such as the internet, recordings and concerts - all existing activities that the charity were involved in. More than this, the programme sought a trademark in a class granting it the exclusive right to use the name "in printed materials" - effectively removing our ability to describe ourselves in correspondence!
The duty in law to protect the trademark and the identity falls to the trademark owner, in this case our charity Rhythmix. Bluntly, we were told to put up or shut up. However, we decided that the cost of changing the name was potentially worse, and that it was in any case morally wrong for a charity that uses music to try and engage with young people about their rights and responsibilities not to be prepared to stand up for the same thing when challenged.
The public were wonderful, with a huge number of people writing to the programme and expressing their views in forums, on Facebook and on Twitter. Stephen Fry, Alistair MacGowan, Armando Ianucci, Enter Shikari, Get Cape and many other celebrities took time to get involved. A support group called Raging for Rhythmix was formed, and somebody was even so annoyed about it they decided to try to boost Nirvana to Christmas number 1 in support of the charity, attracting 100,000 supporters. Even parliament took an interest, with an Early Day Motion being submitted by Caroline Lucas MP and attracting cross party support.
Nonetheless, we were repeatedly forced to make decisions about how far we were prepared to go to legally defend our right to our own name - both in terms of time and financing any defence.
Thankfully the matter was eventually brought to an amicable conclusion. We kept the full rights to the name Rhythmix and extended its trademark rights, the name of the contestants was changed and we received a donation from the TV programme to underwrite the legal costs that were involved.
However, the substance of the issue raises questions for the charity and voluntary sector about the benefits of trademark and copyright law, and about the interaction between commercial interests and third sector organisations. By holding a trademark, we thought the charity had protected its right to the identity. What we had actually done was establish our right to fight off anybody who wanted to use the same name, provided that we were prepared to invest time and money to do so.
