Intellectual Property law is the bane of musicians – we want to focus on our art, but if we don’t file the right papers or put the right symbols in our liner notes, we can find that someone else has stolen our work, or worse, claim that we’ve stolen theirs. But the music itself isn’t the only thing the law entangles – artist’s names can cause problems as well.
Fans of Conjure One may notice that the same voice sings Center of the Sun and Make a Wish from the first album (credited as Poe), and Endless Dream, One Word and Extraordinary Ways from the second (credited as Jane). Why the change in pseudonyms? The rumor is that her former label, Atlantic, is tenaciously holding onto the rights to the name “Poe.” Try as I might, I’ve been unable to find a clear, official source to document this, but I found plenty of hints and allusions on Poe’s website.
A more humorous example is found on the back of Aphex Twin’s “drukqs” album. The back cover includes the following disclaimer, verbatim:
Aphex is a registered trademark of Aphex Systems Limited and is used by permission.
(This must be in same font, text size etc as rest of artwork, and clearly legible.)
