[789]

I know this is a strange one, but I have heard the phase ” Great East midlands” is copyrighted in the use in jingles? is that possible? surly not.

[DWSharp]

If Great East Midlands is an actual location then I think not. It is an official region
of England so that could not be possible. You meant “phrase” correct?

BTW I could be wrong but how you can copyright a geographical location?

[patlaw]

No

[bobgreenradioMember]

geography? not at all. imagine what hell it would bring down on map makers!

but; dont confuse a copyright with a trademark.
not at all the same.

i cant address english law, even though american law is based on it, they are not much alike now.

[IainJohnston]

Putting a made-up “descriptor” in front of a geographical location MIGHT though – “East Midlands” – OK – but putting “Great” in front could perhaps change the situation.

(But don’t say that putting “Great” in front of “Britain” would do the same – thats a historical corruption of the French “Grande Bretagne ” meaning “big Britain” as opposed to “small Britain” which is Brittany).

Also numbers – remember Intel called their processor chips “Pentium” – i.e. related to “Five” , because no-one can “copyright a number” i.e. plain “586” but they COULD copyright e.g. “i586”?

Anyway I digress – would be a good prompt though for montage-creators to do a few selections of jingles with “made-up location slogans/taglines” instead of just freq/call/name or “More Music Variety” etc etc.

[Tracy CarmanMember]

Disney recently tried to Trademark “El Día De Los Muertos”… a Mexican holiday that traces back to the Aztecs. That didn’t work so well and they’re withdrawing their application.

I personally own the servicemark “BOO BASH”. When it went through review, I was told I couldn’t stake claim to the word “Bash” alone, as the term can represent a party; nor the word “Boo” since it is too generic in nature. Kinda apples and oranges, I know, but there has to be something unique and identifiable in order to ‘mark’ it.

Many have tried to register the term BOSTON STRONG after the recent marathon issues. It’s become to generic to be owned by one person or entity. That didn’t stop ’em from trying to cash in on it, though.

When 9/11 took place, the last thing said by the passengers that brought down one of the planes before it could hit its target was “Let’s roll”… and that was attempted to be copyrighted in shirts and other profit making venues by families of the passengers.

I should note, however, that you can register a ‘mark’ to define a radio format… like “JACK” or “NASH” or…!

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