IP law talk with Eric Bjorgum, Black Flag & mural rights

People have powerful feelings about the traffic in Los Angeles. It says something that local officials warned motorists about a temporary roadwork closure on the 405 last year by calling it Carmageddon. Angelenos took the hint, and this weekend they're expected to steer clear of the latest 405 closure, named, of course, Carmageddon 2. That's how it is in L.A., a snarl of overstuffed freeways and commuters who keep their cool, except when they don't. KPCC's Stephen Cuevas has this profile of a punk rocker whose music expresses the insanity of L.A. traffic while extolling the virtues of public transit. Couple of things you need to know about Eddie Solis. He lives in L.A., loves the band Kiss, and does not own a car. Being someone who's from L.A., born and raised, and, you know, having a few cars in my past, I saw the city much differently through a different perspective through the eyes of a bus rider. One just all the way to the back. Line 18, Wilshire, Western Station. Just steps from the front door of his home, across the street from a tortilla factory in L.A.'s Boyle Heights neighborhood, Solis catches a bus that connects him with the city's subway, and the commuter train he catches to his day job at an indie record label in Hollywood. It just opened me up to, like, little neighborhoods, galleries, clubs, bars, just everything. Just seeing what's out there, little pockets of the city. Solis' journeys aboard L.A. buses and subway cars informs a lot of the material on The New Los Angeles Part One, Through the Eyes of a Bus Rider, the latest release by the singer-guitarist band It's Casual. The New Los Angeles No one has been wet In Solis' vision of a New Los Angeles, people abandon their cars, climb aboard public transit, and rediscover their communities. One song extols the virtues of the L.A. County Metropolitan Transit Agency's E-ZPass, and the urban underbelly it introduces to the rider. And that's, like, a nod, an homage to, you know, the people who know what you can even go cheaper, and really beat the system, and really steer away from spending money on gas and oil profits and all that. Fifty dollars is all it takes For me to get to work Fifty dollars is all it takes Fifty dollars is all it takes Fifty dollars is all it takes For me to witness racial tension For me to witness illegal aliens It's not to paint a negative picture It's just my perspective of what is seen E-ZPass Off the bus and back on the street, we make our way past a jazz saxophonist playing for pocket change and down a long escalator to catch a train. So, where are we now? We're at the Red Line Station, the Pershing Square Station in downtown L.A. And what's our destination? We're going to go downstairs another tier, and in about five minutes we're going to get the Red Line going northbound. Okay, let's go. The Metro Red Line snakes from North Hollywood to downtown Los Angeles. It's the train that inspired its casuals' signature tune and spawned a viral internet video. It was partly filmed late at night on a moving train as it hurtles from station to station. Solis thrashes away on his guitar and barks the lyrics. which celebrate the Red Line and call out the congested freeways that coil around Los Angeles. This is a Metro Red Line train to North Hollywood. The 210, the 605, the freeways are not so nice. The I-5, the 210, the freeways are not so nice. The thread that comes out of the record that ties everyone together is just like, be alive, don't be a victim of having a car. The 210, the 605, the freeways are not so nice. The I-5, the 210, the freeways are not so nice. The Red Line, the Red Line. An MTA spokesman said he couldn't comment on Eddie Solis' furious pro-Metro message, but the Red Line video was a hit at the offices of Move LA. Eddie's done a good job. Thank you, Eddie. Thank you, Eddie. The public transportation advocacy group headed by former Santa Monica mayor Denny Zane, he liked the juxtaposition of Solis blissfully riding LA public transit in one scene with scenes of the band raging against those notorious freeway jams. Eddie is all frantic when he talks about highways and so mellow when he's like grooving on his skateboard and on the bus and on the Red Line. There's a metaphor for the transformation, you know, from the, oh my God, I just got to get out of the... traffic to, hey, this is cool. I can mellow out. Or you can blast the tune like too many people as you claw your way across Los Angeles by car, bus, or skateboard. Los Angeles There's too many people I want them to go away Even though it may take some time Too many people could also be a motto for its casualness. Over the years, the band whittled itself down to a power duo of Solis and a rotating cast of drummers. So you may think the burly, bearded punk rocker just can't get along with freeways, with people, or his native LA. Not true. I love it. I love everything about it. I've traveled throughout the U.S. many times and I could never look forward enough to coming back. The weather, the different cultures, the landscape. I was just like, you know what? Now I know why everyone moves to LA. Solis will bring the love and the volume during a Redline mini-tour next month. Its casual will play a different venue within walking distance of several Redline metro stops from Union Station to West Hollywood. For the California Report, I'm Stephen Cuevas. I want my driver's license back for the next two weeks. And that's the California Report, a production of KQED Public Radio in San Francisco. Our director this week is Nina Thorson. Sil Muller is our technical producer. We had additional engineering from Danny Bringer and Howard Gellman. Thanks to Hank Hadley at KCBX. Our online team includes Lisa Pickoff-White, David Marks, and Don Clyde. Our interns are Catherine Borgeson and Rachel Johnson. Taiki Hendrix is our elections editor with production. We'll see you next week. We had editing support from Paul Rogers. Victoria Malione is our associate senior producer. Ingrid Becker is our senior producer. The news director is Bruce Kuhn. I'm Rachel Miro. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend. This is the California Report. Funds for the California Report are provided by the James Irvine Foundation. Expanding opportunity for the people of California and supporting the California Report since its premiere in 1995. And the California Endowment. Health happens in schools at calendow.org. And Chevron. Investing in renewables, strengthening communities, and creating jobs. More information at chevron.com. The freeways are not so nice. The I-5. The 210. The freeways are not so nice. The 101. The 405. The freeways are not so nice. The I-5. The I-10. The freeways are not so nice. The 210. The 605. The freeways are not so nice. I-5. The I-10. The freeways are not so nice. The red line The red line The red line The red line The red line The red line The red line The red line Between 10 to 6 or 5 The freeways are not so nice The I-5, the I-10 The freeways are not so nice The 101, the 405 The freeways are not so nice The 605, the 101 The 101, the 101 The I-10, the 210 The 605, the 101 The 405, the I-10 The freeways are not so nice The red line The red line The red line The red line The red line The red line The red line The red line Welcome, welcome, welcome to an afternoon episode of Los Angeles Nista I'm your host and producer Edward Solis My in-studio guest Eric Bjorgum How are you? Hey Eddie, how are you? Good I'm good Well, for those of you that are not familiar with IP, intellectual property, Eric Bjorgum is a intellectual property lawyer. That's correct, right? That's right, that's right. And your firm is out of Pasadena. Right. And it's Karish and Bjorgum. Right, right. Intellectual property. Yep. And what I want to do with this episode is not only highlight, you know, the city that's attached to where you guys come out of Pasadena and the surrounding adjacent cities to get people familiar with, but explain clearly exactly what the difference is between copyright and trademark and all that stuff. You want to have that explained clearly? That's a problem, right? That's a gray area. Right, no, it's not a gray area. I just get a lot of people who want to call me about copywriting their invention or patenting their copyright or whatever. So it's not all the same stuff. Ah, yeah. Well, let's get into you. So I want to build a profile. I want people to know who you are. Right. You know, I know you because you're, you're into good music of all genres. You like metal, punk, hardcore, and we've, you know. It's casual. Yeah. Thank you. And we've come across paths, you know, at the Relax Bar when I used to throw shows there. But, you know, we've actually have worked together on some things and it's been a pleasant experience for me. And I don't think I've asked you much, but tell me about your background. Where did you go to law school? I went to law school in Boston, in Boston College, and I went to undergrad at Berkeley. I grew up in small town Auburn in Northern California. So that's like Santa Cruz area. No, no. That's more towards Tahoe. Tahoe. Yeah. And when did you move to Los Angeles? Well, after law school, I went to, I lived in Reno for two years. I was a law clerk there for a federal judge. And then I got a job at a big firm in LA and moved down here. What firm were you at? This firm, Queen Emanuel, that's now ginormous. It's like 600 lawyers. They did, the Samsung Apple case, the Mattel, yeah, the Mattel Barbie Bratz case. They've done huge cases. But then I went to an IP firm in Pasadena and then me and Mark Karish there, Mark Karish and I started our own firm in Pasadena in downtown. And we just moved back to Pasadena because we each have kids. And so I live in Pasadena and he lived, I live in Sierra Madre. He lives in Pasadena. Right. And it's pretty cool. You know, we do all levels of IP, from patents to copyrights to litigation on all that stuff, trademarks. And we just try and service everyone that comes in the door, you know? Sure, sure. So, I mean, IP could mean, you know, I mean, it's definitely a thing where you're protecting your intellectual property, what you create. Right, right. And what's the most common misunderstood thing about that one? When a client comes to you, when it comes to a trademark, do people expect it to be something else that it's not? Well, there's always these myths. There's the kind of the classic myths of IP that people always talk about at these seminars. Like, if you mail something to yourself, that's a copyright. That's a poor man's copyright. A poor man's copyright. That doesn't exist, right? No, that doesn't really exist. And copyright's only $35 anyway, so you might as well just file it online. Right. Now, a question about the whole mail yourself myth. Why do you think that's become a myth and still is ongoing? Just misinformed? Dude, I got no idea why people still think that. It's probably, it'd be good evidence towards something if you had a dispute, but, you know, if you've got a copyright, you should really register it because if you register it, you're going to get attorney's fees and what they call statutory damages if it's infringed. There's a real incentive to do that. As far as trademarks go, the biggest misconception I have there is people think a trademark is like a patent or a copyright in that it's something that you can get and then sort of enforce on people no matter what, and really you have to be using it. You know, a trademark. So even if you own a mark and it's not being used, there's no relevant product in the marketplace. Yeah, you're out of luck. And if someone else comes along and starts doing it, you can't really stop them. Well, you have a big fight, but you can't just register a trademark and not do anything with it. On the other hand, if you are using a product or like a band name, like your band name, right? We registered your band name. Sure, it's casual. But it's got, you've got tons of trademark rights already before you registered that. That's because it's 10 years old. Yeah, you've been using it and you're touring or whatever. So you have like national rights almost already, but we're just registering it to kind of put a cap on it, so. Right. So a lot of times when you get maybe like, you know, someone who owns a restaurant or something and they're like, it's time I got to do this. You know, I want to make sure I own this name. I mean, the fact that that's to put a cap on it. I mean, they've been around 20, 30, 40 years doing business and still ongoing. I mean, that's the historical. To protect the name, right? That's definitely true. But if you register, you do have national rights. So there's someone in, you know, Florida could have the same name. And if they go before you, they're going to have the rights in Florida. So there always is that problem. Potentially, there's been some famous examples of big companies who did names and didn't do searches. So we do a search sometimes. Sometimes we don't. We don't automatically make you do a search because they're kind of expensive. But- Can you say what some of those big companies were? Oh, I can't remember. It was some chain of grocery stores that was going to open. And there was one in Texas that was doing it for forever and they couldn't open there. So you definitely have to do a search if your thing is somewhat popular. And you can't just search on Google. And, you know, it's kind of a pain. It's like when you do a fictitious business name with the county recorder, you go into their database. Yeah, except you're going into the whole world. So at least nationally. So, but that's, you know, we try and, I mean, we try to do a search. So we both, Mark and I saw a lot of waste, I think. A lot of, you know, laws very expensive. So we tried to tailor the needs of our, you know, tailor our services to the needs of our clients. Right. We don't just tell every person, oh, you've got to do a trademark search and you've got to get it in five classes and you've got to get it in Europe. And, you know, there's just, there's little steps and, you know. Well, everything's a case by case basis, right? Right, right. That's typically how we deal with it. I mean, I mean, being a music fan, I want to bring this up. It just seems like there's a lot of, a lot of bands breaking off and in doing two versions of the bands, whether it's the hair metal stuff like Queensryche. Right. Maybe Great White, Black Flag, we're both huge fans of. Well, Black, well, I'm the lawyer for the Great White case. Okay. So I'm intimately familiar with that. Unfortunately, it's still going on. I don't really want to represent anything about the case, but I represent the band. Yeah. Not Jack Quinsall. Not Jack. Yeah, Jack's on the other side. I've taken Jack's deposition and I've been in lots of rooms with Jack. And I represent Mark Kendall, Audie Desbro and Michael Lardy. And that's, you know, it's a very difficult situation when a band's like that. But I think that overall, at the end of the day, another thing about a trademark is that someone has to own it. Like at the end of the day, someone's got to own it. You know? Instinct is always, well, can they divide it up somehow? Sure. And you have a band like LA Guns, right? There's two LA Guns now, or there was. All that does is mean that their prices go down for both of them. You know? It's devalued. Yeah, their brand gets diluted. And so the policy behind trademarks is really building up a public image for something and then letting people, you know, go into the marketplace. The Black Flag one is really, that's really a tough one. Yeah. I mean, have you looked into it? I mean, is it? I mean, Greg does own, obviously, Black Flag, right? The name? Yeah. I mean, these cases kind of go the gamut. If you were to kind of put it on a scale, you could say on the one end, you have like Billy Joel, right? He obviously owns Billy Joel. If he doesn't show up, you're not seeing Billy Joel. Right. On the other end, you have like Menudo, right? Right. Like it's a manager who owns that and it's a bunch of guys. And then in the middle, you have all these other cases like Journey, Foreigner, Black Flag, Great White. Like it's all case specific based on the name. Right. And it's all case specific based upon what's going on in that band and everything. So a band like Black Flag, I would say it's pretty clear that Greg Ginn is Black Flag. Sure. He can ride that trademark until he can start doing salsa music if he wants. No one's going to buy it, but it's his to do what he wants with. On the other hand, you have these guys like Dachowski and- Keith. Keith, who deserve to have, they were part of this big major thing and they deserve, I think, to have some part of it. Some part of their legacy. And I mean, I think it was like one of Rollins books or the Black Flag bio where they said there was the, it wasn't before Henry, it was before and after Dachowski. You know, Dachowski was the thing that changed the band. So he probably feels like he needs some recognition, you know, whatever. And then you have Dez and so you have these major guys and Bill Stevenson. They were all big components of the band. No matter if it was Greg's band or not. I mean, they were all a part of the band and huge components. I would hate to be on that case. Yeah. Either side, because I feel like both of them deserve something. I mean, but if the ownership is on paper, Greg Ginn owns Black Flag and the logo. Right. And owns the masters and you know, all the rights. Right. And is pretty much the key songwriter and lyricist and it's all in his favor. Can they go out legally and do Flag? I mean, obviously they wouldn't be doing it, right? Well, they're doing it. I mean, and they also have, they're also using the logo, that little altered logo. Right. And so if I was their lawyer, I'd probably say, you know, that's kind of rubbing it in his eye a little bit. You might not want to do that. But on the other hand, I have a lot of respect for Greg Ginn and his intelligence and everything he did legally with the band back in the 80s. And he's been very smart about this by reforming his own band because he doesn't have to litigate. He doesn't have to pay the money to litigate. But what he's doing is he's taking the marketplace a little bit and making sure that they don't make too much money on it. And, you know, he's doing something. Yeah. Yeah. He's doing something smart and positive. Wow. Rather than just litigating it. I mean, I think that's what he's doing. Maybe not, but he's basically going out into the marketplace and saying, if you want that one, maybe you want this one, you know? Sure. Don't pay those guys as much money. I mean, it's, it's competition. It's, you know, it's kind of sad, but at least he's not in the court system. You know what I mean? And that's what you want to avoid is, you know, the, well, I get paid a lot of money if that happens, but it's very, very expensive. Yeah. Yeah. So do you think, I mean, you know, you're a big fan of the band. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, I mean... I mean, if Ginn were to... Sorry to interrupt. If he were to file a lawsuit against Flag, do you think it would hold up? For what? For trademark infringement? Trademark infringement and merch. Because it says Flag and it's... The test is if it's likelihood of confusion. So you'd have to decide if people are going to be confused. And you'd have to get the audience... The test is the relevant audience. So you're going to have to get a bunch of Black Flag fans and put them in a room and then run a survey. If you see this T-shirt, where do you think it comes from? I mean, that's the ideal thing you do. That's very, very expensive. So a lot of people don't do that. Would it hold up? I mean, what does that mean? Would it get through the early phases of litigation? Possibly, right? Would it get through the whole case? I don't know. What would happen at trial? That depends a lot of times on who people like. So it's probably not worth the money. So a lot of it's like personality. Well, trial is. Trial is. Yeah, yeah. Because you're... You're in a little room with a bunch of people and they're going to figure out who they like. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's very interesting. And are there a lot of cases, like some of those bands that are put together, like I'm a new though, where the manager owns a name, like he put it together. Right, right, right, right. That happens. Wow. Wow. So he actually owns a name and you come into his world. It's like you're an employee for him. Right. Yeah, yeah. They're very clear. It's employees like regular, not partners, but employees. Right. Right. Now, as far as the... Getting away from music and going into a different world, graffiti, we're talking about Los Angeles. Right, right, right. Now, can we talk about this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. The LA Mural Conservancy. Right, right. You represent them. Yeah, well, I'm on the board. You're on the board. One of the board members, yeah, of the LA Mural Conservancy, which is really trying to bring back the murals in LA. And we've been doing it in a very visual way on the... Well, I mean, very obvious way on the freeways, bringing back the Olympic murals. So you got the freeway, kids on the 101, we're by City Hall, they've come back. You've got the cars going to the Olympics. The two murals, the Kent Twitchell murals under, I think it's Grand, with the people pushing their faces against a sheet of glass. Those have all come back because of us in the last year. And we're also working with a lot of... We have Willie Heron doing the restoration. Yeah, exactly. Explain who Willie is. He's a key... Well, he's a major... Yeah, he was a major part of the OSCO thing, which is East LA Art Collective that got really big last year during Pacific Standard Time in terms of their historical importance. And so by having him, we have a lot of legitimacy of someone who's out there who's a real East LA artist who's been there a long time. And people aren't tagging the stuff that we're fixing. It's staying clean. And if they do tag it, we fix it right away. So we're not having the tagging problems that people have had in the past. And I think... It was really bad. Yeah. And I think they're very, very amazed at what we're doing. So we're really operating... Isabel Rojas-Williams, who used to be a professor at Cal State in Art LA. She's the head of the day-to-day operations. And she's just doing an incredible job with a very, very limited budget. We have Kent Twitchell, who did the musicians on the 110 on the board. I mean, it's just like the all-stars of public art in LA because everyone knows we're at a crucial point that there's going to be a new statute that's going to come out within the next couple of months. And it's going to be legal to do murals again in LA. And so you're going to see a lot of murals going up. So there's a statute that's going to be releasing to you the right to do murals? Yeah, because what happened was they got bundled in with signage. And so the signage guys were like, well, if we can't do these giant billboards for movies or whatever, you can't do that. And the city just didn't want to get in the middle of it. So there's been a moratorium basically for years. And now... For the first time, you're going to have the ability to basically pay a fee, register with the city and have an art mural on your wall. Wow. Yeah. So you're going to see a lot more murals going up in the next couple of years. So, I mean, it's actually illegal to do that now. Yeah, basically, but you don't see them... Because everyone knows what's going on, you don't see them really enforcing it. They'll enforce it probably against commercial uses, but against art uses and what's the line between art and graffiti. That's another question that we deal with. But you could probably do it right now. No one's going to do anything. I'm not going to speak for the city, but I'm just telling you what I've seen. What's the... I mean, those guidelines that are in place, like what is the art versus graffiti? Like what are the specs? There are no specs. I mean, that's another one of those things like flag versus black flag, you know, and that's where it gets expensive with lawyers is trying to prove those things. So you kind of want to work it out. If you're going to put a mural, on a building, you'd want to talk to the owner and be on good terms with them. Make sure he knows how to contact you. Just communicate, right? Yeah. Because the other thing is that people don't know about that I do is if someone destroys a mural, it's basically like a major copyright infringement case. They've destroyed a part of your history under what's called moral rights. Moral rights, huh? Yeah, right. And we did the... I did the case for Kent Twitchell on the Olympic and 9th on the Job Corps building. Settled for $1.2 million. Which was by far the biggest mural case that's ever happened. And just to drive the point home to the building owners, like you can't just paint over the stuff. You have to give the artist 90 days notice. That's all you have to do. But you got to do it. And people still are painting over murals all the time. So I get a couple of calls a week for new cases. So when people paint over a mural, that's called the Moral Rights Act. Right, right, right. You're basically taking something off a resume of an artist. You know, it's like if I took one of your seven-inch singles off your resume and it's like, that's gone now. So you haven't done that. You'd be like... Erased from history. Yeah, even if it's not selling, that's part of your deal, right? Right. It's part of a legacy. Right. So there's some damage there. And the U.S. had to sign on to the European laws for that to get into the Berne Convention. So we have moral rights and they're a little bit watered down versus what's in Europe. But we do have them and people just don't realize it. I mean, how much... So, I mean, the U.S., it's more diluted. But what's the moral rights situation in Europe? I mean... They just have different rights where, you know, it's... They can be... Artists can have the right not to have his name on something or, you know, I forget how it goes. There's like six rights. The right to destroy something, I think, if you don't like it. I mean, there's just different things and it goes beyond just visual works. Here, it's just visual works. Technically, it could go to music. It could go to movies. It could go to... Here, it's visual works of art. So it's more... It's more limited. It's definitely watered down. It's more of an art preservation statute than a moral rights statute. Say, like, a gray gin finds a guy bootlegging black flag shirts. Right. Right? And he puts a stop to it. Yeah. I mean, are there cases... I've heard this be true with bands. I'm not sure. But maybe they get caught and then they just say, hey, you know, just account to us for what you sold and you can keep selling them. Yeah, there's... And that's a way to settle it, right? Yeah, there's definitely ways to be normal about it. Yeah. Without getting heated and trying not to be a jerk. Yeah. Like, I've dealt with Culver a lot. You had Culver on the show. Yeah, yeah. I've had Ed Culver. You actually have dealt with him. Yeah. And we've done a lot. I did some... Helped him do some T-shirts and do some agreements and stuff. And guys like Ian McKay or Henry Rollins are really, really cool about that because they know he goes way back. And... Like, when he did that stuff, it wasn't to... Yeah. ...make a bunch of money. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And they... And they... And they... And they... And they've been... You can tell why they've been successful because they know when to hold them and when to fold them. You know, it's like, they're not going to fight. They're not going to argue. They know that that's not a bad thing, that Ed's not going to go out and make millions of dollars off their legacy. And if anything's in place, it's an agreement where he'll get... They'll get something out of it. Yeah, but they just... They don't even want to deal with it. You know what I mean? We're not talking about major dollars here. Other people, you know, some bands I don't want to talk about. Sure. They've said no or they've made us... account to them on an onerous basis that it's just sort of like, why even push this thing? You know what I mean? It's like... And some, like Darby Crash's mom, like, you can't get a hold of her. We're trying... We tried to get a hold of her. You know, it's like... Even though she's registered his name, it's hard to find her to send the money to. So there's just different people and there's different ways to go about being a jerk about something or letting someone do something that you think is going to help the scene, basically. Right. I mean, so for them, I mean, you sell shirts and someone like a Gregan could say, okay, yeah, just account for what you sold and give me a piece. That's one way to do it. Yeah, he could do that. Right, right. And not put the kibosh on him. Now, what's... In a case with Ed and all the photos he's taken, I mean, that's just so... I mean, I'm sure what he has out there in his private collection, there's just so much. Right, right. How do you... I mean, if he took the pictures, does he own them? He owns the copyright. That's right, yeah. Everything. That's what's amazing about that time period for me as a lawyer, which is sort of a geeky thing. But I see him and I say, this guy's sitting on a mountain of copyrights, you know, because back in the day, people weren't policing that. I guess they don't police it now either because they can't with everyone having a phone. But back then he was standing around with a 35 millimeter with a flash and no one was thinking about rights of publicity or copyrights or any of that. It was truly living in the moment. Right. And documenting it. Yeah. Because you're excited about it. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. And that comes through in his work. But, and so he basically owns all that stuff, you know, and... All the copyrights. But he doesn't own the images to the people. He doesn't own their likenesses. So he can't just go out and exploit Henry Rollins' image endlessly. He would get stopped immediately. But... So if anyone, if anyone got anyone's face and put it on a t-shirt or on the internet... Technically that's... Same stuff. Exploiting your image, yeah. But I mean, it's like if you're going to enforce that, it's... Go ahead and spend your money on it. But there's... How do you enforce that though? You just write CND letters and threaten to sue people and people do it all the time. I mean, I've been involved with... And it's so fast now. That's defamation, right? Defamate? No, it's not defamation. Defamation is something else. Gotta get you in law school, Eddie. Name defamation? At least a couple of paralegal classes before you start filing cases. No, no. But like urban outfitters, I've had some things with them. Like I had this group up in Northern California called Trust Your Struggle. Okay. And they were a bunch of artists who were doing graffiti and stuff. And someone saw that slogan because that's a cool slogan. And they sold a shirt to urban outfitters, right? Because urban outfitters is like, look, got their pulse on what's going on. They have their ear to the street. Yeah, but they don't have it, but they have people who are making t-shirts who have it. And it turned out that when we sent the CND letter, it was one of my friends, friends in Redlands who was making the shirts and who saw it on the internet. And he was very apologetic and we straightened the whole thing out and he sent them a little bit of money and that was the end of it. And that's like the cool way to deal with it. But the whole cycle from underground culture to like mall culture now is so fast. It's just, it's frightening. You know, when you look back at like hardcore that you could have a whole scene develop like that nationally that the mainstream culture just didn't even pay attention to. Sure. You know, now it's just like, if the kids like it, let's put it in Hot Topic. It's, so it's, there's a lot of. It's literally put it in a store and see if it sticks. Right. And that life on a shelf now, the shelf life is dwindling by the day. It's like used to be 90 days, now it's 60 days, now it's 30 days. And now it's like out of the box. Oh, really? Yeah. So anyways, I mean. That's your end of it, yeah. Yeah, I just think, I mean, that's just the way it's getting in general for a lot of things. But I mean, I mean that, that's a unique example. I mean, if, say for example, you trademarked a slogan, like I love Latinas. Right. Can you actually trademark that? No, that's another myth. Yeah, you can't really do that. Why not? Why not? Well, it has to be in connection with a good or a service, right? You can have, I love. Goods or service? Yeah, you could have, I love Latinas pizza shop, right? You could use that. Or you could use, I love Latinas sex toys by Eddie Salis. No, thanks. But that would designate sex toys and that would be fine. But you just can't have it on a t-shirt and like own the slogan. You can't trademark copyrighted slogan. At all. No, it's gotta be in use. So we always tell people, cause people always wanna send us web pages or t-shirts. And we say for a t-shirt, like you gotta have it on, you gotta have it either on a hang tag or on a label inside your shirt to show that that's where it came from. And if you do that, you can get some good stuff. Like I have a client, named Fab Dog, and I got bitch and stud through for them, for dog clothes, you know? Wow. Yeah. And you can, so you can do stuff, but you've gotta actually be using it as a trademark. So there you go. It's a trademark bitch? For dog clothes, yeah. For dog clothes. Yeah. Wow. And stud. Wow. And we also did Delta Omega Gamma, which would be dog in Greek, but it doesn't really say dog in Greek. So anything like, you know, I love Latinas or I love Latinos or, I don't know. You know. Not to discriminate. Yeah. I love white women or, or, or, or, you know, eat beans and rice. Like any of that you can't trademark. Not by itself. It has to be in use. In use. And you can't have scandalous things. There's a funny, there's a funny thing. I don't know if it's still up on the USPTO site, but if you want some free porn, there's a funny, someone, someone tried to get a trademark. I think it was on, you come like a girl or something like that. Okay. And you can't trademark scandalous things. And so I think they went back and forth with the trademark office a little bit about what the word come means. And this trademark examiner went online and downloaded like just crazy amounts of porn and put it on the record and said, this is what it means. So the examiner. Yeah. The examiner said, okay, you don't think it's scandalous? Well, here's what it means. You know? Wow. Yeah. So to show them, this is why we're not going to let you trademark. Right. Right. So you can't trademark scandalous things like that, but, but it's pretty funny. You can still go on to the, uspto.gov and find that application still out there. Right. Well now tell me, you, you and I, I'm going to reveal one of the things that we tried working on. Right. Trademarking my pedal setup. Right. Okay. Now what's, what's, what's behind that? Like how can we can't get it there? Well, you could actually trademark a sound or a smell. And you, you might be able to do it, but it's just, you know, you, you might be known as a bit of a jerk if you try to do that too. I mean, we can submit a sound, registration, you know, sound registration. Say, yeah, every time, anytime anyone hears this combination of tones, they think it's casual. But it might not be worth the money to do that. I don't know. Obviously it'd be a lot of work and a lot of money. I don't know how you're going to enforce it. Are you going to go to gigs and pull out your, your spectrum analysis thing? You know what I mean? I thought it would be better for you just to, just to go ahead and copyright your pedal setup and then make a photo of it. And then just try and make it a, a piece of art or something. And then people tried to copy it. You can say they were copying your pedals. That formula. Right. Yeah. Right. And as far as, or you could spend 10 K on a patent if you want with us and not get it, but that's, that's up to you. 10 K on a patent. Patents are very expensive. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to take a break. We're going to listen to some, it's casual and some good for you from Greg Ginn and Mike Valeli. We'll be back. Let's do it. This is Ignacio Salcido from Lama School, The Bakery in Boyle Heights. You're listening to LA Nista. And Skid Row Studios.com. This episode of Los Angeles Nista is brought to you by Lama Skoda Bakery, a family owned business serving the community since 1952. Tamales and sweet bread. Made the old fashioned way daily. Yeah. Life is too short to not hold a grudge. No concessions I will not budge. I won't forgive. There'll be no compromise. Meet you halfway. I'd rather die. Love for a tone or make amends. No, surrender. We'll never be friends. Be no peace. There'll be no love. Life's too short to not hold a grudge. You fucked me over. You hung me out to dry. You swept me under. You said goodbye. From a tone or make amends. No surrender. We'll never be friends. There'll be no peace. There'll be no love. Life's too short to not hold a grudge. You fucked me over. You hung me out to dry. You swept me under. You said goodbye. I feel no guilt. I feel no shame. If I killed you now, it would be the same. I killed you now, it would be the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Till I die I hold my grudge Until the end of time I'll never atone Or make amends No surrender We'll never be friends Be no peace There'll be no love Life's too short to not Hold a grudge You fucked me over You hung me out to dry You swept me under You said goodbye I'll never atone Or make amends No surrender We'll never be friends Be no peace There'll be no love Life's too short to not Hold a grudge You fucked me over You hung me out to dry You swept me under You said goodbye Life's too short to not Hold a grudge No concessions I will not budge I won't forgive There'll be no compromise Meet you halfway I'd rather die Meet you halfway I'd rather die Meet you halfway I'd rather die Meet you halfway I'd rather die Meet you halfway I'd rather die Meet you halfway I'd rather die! Music Music Music Music Music Music Music! Music! Music Music Music Music Music We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. filing problems. And then copyrights are whatever Disney wants. Is that the inside joke? No. Well, yeah. I mean, the copyright keeps getting extended and really what's driving it is when Mickey Mouse is going to go into the public domain. Wow. The thing, you know, the thing that's really interesting right now, actually for your music guys, is this right of revocation and termination. What's that? Where artists, it's built into the Copyright Act. It's like 35 years, I think. I've got to do some research on this because it's happening a lot now. You can go to the person you licensed or transferred your copyright to and say, I want it back. You've had 35 years. I want it back. And the reason that you can do that is for this thing where you have a starving artist who gives away his stuff for nothing and then it becomes huge and now he wants to make some money on it. And this doesn't apply to works for hobbyists. Right. But what you're having now is you're having all these bands, because this really started in 78, like Led Zeppelin, you know, Heart, whatever, all these bands, ZZ Top, their stuff's going to start coming up, Fleetwood Mac, where they could go to the label and say, okay, we want it back now. Now, if it's a work for hire, they can't do that. So they're all going to be litigating whether or not, you know, when they got their advance in 1978, whether they were working as an employee, whether they were working as an independent contractor. And it's going to be huge. And a lot of punk rock bands should probably be trying to get in on this. Like you're going to have the early social distortion stuff, Black Flag was on its own label, but whoever ended up giving their stuff away can probably get it back. So because the way the contract was designed, it's questionable. You're saying as far as... Depending on whether they were work for hire or not. Like if they gave them cash amount, here's 20 grand. We own it. That's the agreement. That's work for hire, right? No, work for hire is very strict. Work for hire is you're going to go in that studio right now and you're going to record that song. We're going to sign an agreement before you go do it. You can't just do it retroactively. So that's why a lot of these punk bands could probably get it back because no one was doing that back then. They just went in with no... Yeah. And so if you transferred your rights after that, it can't be work for hire. That's to protect the artist. So... So is this actually going to be... You say coming up. It's 35 years and the Copyright Act was in effect in 78. So, right, you just do the math. It's coming up now. These things are starting to happen. So there's a lot of new cases starting. They're not, yeah, they're not really cases, but there's a lot of artists out there giving notice to their copyright holder or the transferees of their copyrights saying, hey, give it back. You know, it's going to be... And these cases are starting to be litigated with the big labels. I mean, imagine if you're Atlantic Records and you have to give back the Led Zeppelin catalog. That's going to change the game for them. Right. So they're just going to pay them off or whatever. There's going to be some deal and things will start happening. Like everything else happens. There becomes some statutory thing or whatever. But the kind of the punk rock cases and the stuff will be interesting to see what people do. You see how they handle it. Yeah. Because it's more of a case by case basis as far as the way it was handled. Right, right. Right. I mean, like there's no like statutes of limitations. Like if you can't, you can't, like if you can't find the person. This just started after 35 years. I mean, this just, this whole thing's a brand new thing. Wow. So this will be something that'll be going on. Like a guy like Posh Boy, right? Yeah, that's a good example. He's a notorious people would always say for taking stuff. So I'm not saying he did it. Don't sue me. Right. But I'm just saying I've heard stories, right? So what's going to happen with all that stuff? I don't know. I mean, that's a lot of catalog. I mean. Right. I mean, but on a bigger scale with Led Zeppelin and with Atlantic, I mean, that's like a part of, that's a big component to the Atlantic machine. Right. So they're probably in their best interest is like, okay, what do you want? Right. And give them the money and just keep it. It'll be confidential. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Trade secret. That's a trade secret. So what advice do you have as far as new lawyers wanting to get into their, you know. Lawyers? Yeah. For all you law students out there. Don't do it. That's the first piece of advice. Don't do it. No, no. But you guys get paid the big bucks. Well, there's a big movement now. There's a law professor who had a blog called The Law School Scam. Um, there's a big movement about law schools, um, because they don't really publicize their real, uh, employment rates. There's a lot of people who don't get jobs and they're all spending six figures on school. So you get the schooling and get, become a lawyer. Right. And then there's not a lot of jobs. And so, um, the schools have been sued for fraud. The ABAs had to go back. They've been sued for fraud? Yeah. Because they can't get jobs. It's working. Yeah. One of my friends is one of the main people doing it. And, um, the, the, this is, I, you know. If you want to be a lawyer, that's, that's nothing. There's no problem with that. But I'm just saying it's not like it once was like in the 80s or 90s where you just went to law school and got a job at a big firm and made a bunch of money for a few years. You know, it's like that doesn't totally exist for everyone. And you shouldn't think that it does. And you should really think about what you're going to be doing day to day. And if you like it, you know, like you might like the idea of entertainment law, but do you like the idea of reviewing a contract for eight hours a day? You know, because that's a reality. That's what you're going to be doing when you start. You know, you're not going to be going to a lot of lunches with people. So, or do you like the idea of reviewing documents? You know, I mean, that's what you do when you start out in litigation. So, I mean, every lawyer says don't be a lawyer, but every lawyer is a lawyer, right? So I don't, I'm not trying to give contradictory advice, but it is something that you have to really think about what you're going to be doing from day to day and how you're going to make a living doing it. But also it's a lot of fun. So I like doing what I do. I like helping people out. All these crazy people come in and some of them. I can really help. And some of them I can't. And some of them, the big companies I can make money off of. And so there's just, there's different stuff. So I'm not going to say don't do it because it's better than a lot of jobs. You know, a lot of jobs are really hard. But it's not like telling your mom I'm a lawyer. Whoops. I got shorted out. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Can you hear? Can we hear? Yeah, we hear Eric. So, so what should we do here? I mean, like the age of internet radio. Yeah. Okay. Like. Like episodes, et cetera. Like what should we do here to protect ourselves? You guys? Yeah. That's a good question. I mean, you should probably, this is just streaming live all the time. But you have podcasts, right? And it's archived. Yeah. Yeah. So you should put a copyright notice on your website. That's free. Everyone should do that. If you want to claim copyright, you put a copyright notice on it. That was another thing we had to do to join the burn convention is take away some of the formalities. So you don't have to register to have protection. You register to sue. You have to register to get statutory fees and statutory damages, attorney's fees, but you still have a copyright. Now someone might take it. So you got to put a little C circle or copyright with a year and your name on it. So at least people are on notice that they can't take it. So you guys put that on your website, you know, and then I would probably periodically, you know, if you have a really good show or something, register it or do a compilation of your shows and try and register them. You know, Los Angeles needs the. You know, 19 or 2013. Register them with an archive office. Like an archive. Yeah. Not one by one because that's $35 each. Right. Or a compilation. And that's, that's probably about it. Skid Row should get their name trademarked. Skid Row should get their name trademarked. They have a nice logo. Yes, they should come in. Is that Jeremy? And if you have, if you have a logo like that, you just put a TM by it. So people know it's the same thing. It's free. Put a TM by it. Yep. It's free. People know. You can't now say, oh, I didn't know they were claiming trademark. Now there's a TM by it. You don't have to spend all this money. I think one thing I would like to emphasize is that even for, even the lawyers, you're not going to believe this, but there are some dishonest lawyers out there. I know it's really hard. Really? Yeah. They're officers. Nah. Officers of the court. Yes. And there's a lot. Friends of the court. Yeah. There's a lot of lawyers who would tell you, oh, you need to set up a corporation and you need to get a trademark and I have a package and you need to buy all this stuff. And, you know, you need to kind of do it as you need it. So. If you need. Walk before you run. The old saying, right? Yeah. Yeah. But isn't it a good idea to do something like an LLC just to protect your personal assets? Oh, yeah. No, no, it totally is. I'm just saying, like, make sure you have a business. You know, I have a lot of flaky friends and we all have a lot of flaky friends, right? Sure. So they want to go out and start a business. Well, for a lot of people, that means they want to go out and spend a bunch of money but not do anything, right? So make sure you're doing something. Make sure you're going to have a business, you know? Make sure it's running. You don't need a trademark. Before you have a business, you need to build a trademark that's worth something. Focus on that. But as far as the LLC, yeah. I mean, if you're going to be doing anything that's going to result in liability for anything, even this, right? You're playing music. Maybe you're infringing on someone's copyright. You want to have... Just Eddie's. Yeah. Well, yeah, we don't care about him, right? No. Because his lawyer sucks. But, yeah. So just don't fall for... I mean, legal Zoom's, it's a good thing, but some of their stuff I've seen comes back from the trademark office or whatever. So you don't need all that stuff up front, you know? But it's good that these people are out there making things a little cheaper because some big firms will charge you $1,500 for a trademark or something. And it's kind of like, it's like they're having their secretaries do it. It's not that hard. So I'm generally in favor of a lot of that stuff to keep costs down. But don't just buy... So you're down with legal Zoom then? I'm down with what's going on in the market for what the average person can afford. Yeah, that's good. Wills and trusts and getting corporations and stuff. But just don't, like you're saying, don't run before you can walk. So words of wisdom by Eric Bjorgum. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, thanks. It's a beautiful Friday afternoon in Los Angeles and we're going to go enjoy it. Thank you for tuning in. KBIP. And let's give them your website. Yeah. www.kb-ip.com. We're in Pasadena. Give us a call. Thanks. Perfect. Thanks. Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Come to King's Line Copper Pops Planet of the Never Leave Based off Indiana Street I'm the head of Tokyo You get High on the Car Line Come to King's Line Copper Pops I'm on the Car Line Copper Pops King's Line So here we go Lost up kind of town Going through the Ligeti On the way to Island Park I'm on the Car Line So here we go Couldn't get to Music