The Life of a Showgirl (TM) | How to Launch an Iconic Album?

Taylor Swift announced the name of her new album, “The Life of a Showgirl”™ on her boyfriend’s podcast on Tuesday.  To her army of fans, “Swifties”™ and to much of the rest of the world, this is a major event and a joyous occasion.  However, securing and protecting the intellectual property in such an endeavour is critical and has, historically, been a source of drama for the legend that is Taylor Swift.  How does a star go about protecting an album name (and other intellectual property) ahead of, and after such a launch?

Keep it Secret

While the podcast episode mentioned the name of the album, the actual cover art was blurred out.  You can’t copy what you can’t see and so this was a very prudent step.

Secure it in advance (but not too far in advance)

The day before the announcement, TAS Rights Management, LLC filed a Federal trade mark application at the US Patent and Trade Mark Office (USPTO) for the mark THE LIFE OF A SHOWGIRL for a wide range of goods and services related to entertainment, music and merchandise. 

Filing before the announcement is obviously wise but filing too far ahead of the announcement would risk a leak.  The timing seems impeccable and under the Paris Convention, Ms Swift will have a further six months to file the same trade mark, for the same goods and services, in any Paris Convention country, and claim the benefit of the US filing date.  This puts her ahead of the queue in relation to any copycat applicants.

For the most part, you don’t need a trade mark registration before you commence usage, you just need to determine that the mark is free to use.

Check that the name is available, quietly

Some degree of name clearance will have been conducted prior to the trade mark application being filed, and prior to launch.

Unlike filing a trade mark, name clearance searches do not really leave much of a footprint and can be conducted under the radar.  Attorney client privilege will protect the album name but anyone else involved in the project should naturally be signed up to a Non Disclosure Agreement (“NDA”).

Once the searches have been conducted and a good candidate name has emerged, a trade mark application should be filed fairly quickly, lest the search reports go out of date.  Given that the album name was announced the day after the filing, the whole process will likely have been conducted on a tight timeline.

Searching is typically done in stages because trade marks are territorial and each country has its own register.  Typically an initial high level check will be conducted on a private database that mirrors most national registers and if the candidate name comes up clear, further searches will be conducted on the national level, usually using local attorneys.  

It is uncommon to get a completely clear report across all countries and typically a risk assessment will need to be made, especially under the time pressure of an album launch.

Look beyond the name

In addition to the album name, there is of course the album artwork.

Albums of this significance live on as iconic images and will feature heavily on merchandise and other indicia.  It is essential that ownership of the copyright is secure.

Without an agreement, copyright will vest in the author of an artwork, rather than the commissioning company, and so it is essential that the IP rights holding company has a contract in place to ensure that they own the album artwork.  Disputes between the album artist and the IP holding company can be very damaging and can persist for decades, if not generations.

An IP holding company is a tidy solution because it enables an artist to keep the ownership consistent while still being able to regulate the shares of ownership by way of the company.  This avoids the need to record IP assignments every time there is a change in the beneficial ownership and is a brilliant preventative measure against band name disputes.

With the copyright secure in the IP holding company, other options can be explored.  Both the US and China provide for copyright protection and the Library of Congress shows many entries for Ms Swift.  Album art can also be registered as a design and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) provides for designs to be kept secret up to a certain point.  Album covers, or indeed elements within album covers, can also be registered as trade marks, which can be a good strategy against counterfeit merchandise operators.

How Charles Russell Speechlys can help

We have great depth and breadth of experience with high profile figures in general and in the music industry specifically.  We can conduct trade mark clearance searches on tight timelines and within budget.  We have innovative strategies for protecting trade marks, designs and copyright, and we have an experienced litigation team to enforce these.