This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply. Anita ‘Lady A’ White has talked with Vulture about the lawsuit from the new Lady A: With the pro bono support of intellectual-property attorneys from the Palo Alto–headquartered Cooley law firm, White is confident that justice will eventually prevail. If she has any concern about the way negotiations have crumbled for all the world to see, it is for the way she is being portrayed by the band, how she believes they are positioning her as “the angry Black woman.” But even that won’t stop her fight.“I was quiet for two weeks because I was trying to believe that it was going to be okay and that they would realize that it would be easier to just change their name, or pay me for my name,” White says. “Five million dollars is nothing, and I’m actually worth more than that, regardless of what they think. But here we go again with another white person trying to take something from a Black person, even though they say they’re trying to help. If you want to be an advocate or an ally, you help those who you’re oppressing. And that might require you to give up something because I am not going to be erased.” more Not all embedded content is displayed here. You can view the original to see embedded videos, tweets, etc.
The only thing I question is the confidence that she’ll prevail in court. The band’s trademark registrations are likely incontestable if they’ve filed proper Section 8 and 15 statements with the USPTO over the years, and if all they’re asking for is a declaration of existing rights rather than trying to enforce them against Anita, it’ll be quite an uphill battle to invalidate the registrations, I imagine. (But, as ever, the band is going to be firmly on the losing end of the PR battle, and I can’t believe they don’t see how this fundamentally undermines the entire gesture of changing their name in the first place.)
Exactly I feel like they changed their name in the first place to be better but this makes them look even worse and like someone pointed out yesterday; the Lady A name is just a shorter version of the thing they were trying to get away from so the entire situation is just stupid
It’s so baffling to me that they don’t see this, lol. “Don’t steal from a black woman in your attempt to prove you’re not racist” feels like something you shouldn’t have to say.
This whole thing was a knee jerk reaction gone terribly, terribly wrong. The band was in the position to lose minimal, if not any of their fanbase with a name change...but royally screwed up the execution. 15 minutes of research could've saved them from this mess.