Is it OK to hijack all Artist names? (Discogs, Beatport, Psyshop ..)

[KER]

When an artist is going to release music officially he or she may have a wish to use a specific name that the person in question has had in her head for a long time - or used when playing live without going Official on a release - or merely used the name as a DJ moniker for years, and now wishes to use the name in question on his official  music release.. But then it shows that the Artist name is already taken by someone else. Which within our small and special scene must/should be respected. This happened to my friend who released his debut goa/psytrance music on kali Earth Records. He's been using the artist (without official release) and DJ name AION since the year 1999/2000 (from Norway). This is now his Artist profile: https://www.discogs.com/artist/7977630-Aion-10  - it used to be Aion ((8) but it got changed to Aion (10) because of complaints and problems from another AION (from Mexico) https://www.discogs.com/artist/7050082-Aion-8 who in all fairness was first with the name AION on an official release not easy to find. but he was never-before-our-encounter registered on Discogs.com .. But he was on Beatport, which is official in it self and why we didn't find him when we first looked up if the AION artist name was availible. So after the unpleasent encounter with AION from Mexico claiming the name, AION from Norway decided that fine.. he will leave his long lived name and change it to something else, that zero Psy, or Trance, or House artists already uses ..

.. So he wanted to use the beautiful and for him deep meaning name, Gaiaga. But no, this is a name also taken, by a Goatrance arrtist with 1 release in 2019.. And guess who it is. Yes, Filipe Santos the Lost Buddha, aka. 1000000 x other artist names hijacked. This guy has hijacked so many names and when we are a scene where we try to respect eachother and not step on toes / names, dates .. It's really boring to see how many great and silly names he has claimed. Now AION from Norway is looking at other names ... But feels sad to have had to leave his old AION name and now his new wish, GAIAGA. As his friend and manager, I'm almost tempted to tell him that "fuck it, use the name. You make PsyTrance and he makes Goa-Trance" .. But no, it's wrong, even though it is a mental genious who has hijacked the name, .. we still have to respect the claim and find a brand new name to our guy, AION. Right? -- This is the release which has claimed the GAIAGA artist-name: https://www.discogs.com/artist/6928677-Gaiaga

So good people, what do you think? I guess all is in support of biting the bullet and letting the first person who claims an official Artist name keep it. But what about this Filipe Santos claiming too many names..?Is it OK? -  No, he (Filipe Gaiaga) does not have any world wide distribution deal on the release, so maybe the name is fair game as in still possible to claim ,,officially"? Maybe if Santo the Filipe reads this and tells us that "shoot, take/use the name GAIAGA, it's fine no prob."? *Holla!

PS: This is AION from Norway's debut release (28th of December 2019) to be found on the Goagilde V/A: 

- And this is AFAIK Aion from Mexico's debut release (3/4-2019 - which is actually the time when Aion from Norway was to KER discovered), though it's a remix- not a pure Aion release: 

 
It took him 1 year (4. 2020) to release 1 Original track made by him by himself. So yes, me in KER and him as the Norwegian Aion artist did not catch the already barely excisting AION (from Mexico).



Anyway, did you get the gist of the OT? Can our Aion (from Norway) use the already claimed name, Gaiaga? Or should another bullet be swallowed and try to find a name never ever used before? 


*Aion from Norway is soon out with a new EP mastered by Hutti Heita from Yggdrasil Records with Artwork from Richpa. And so, we need to decide his new lasting artist name. 

[Multi-Media]

Short notice, I do not think that there is an evil intent (like "hijacking" or "stealing").

Just there are so many many more artists than even 10 years ago. One can pile up some samples or download a "beat" and rap over it - VOILA you are now an artist and you wanna share you super music with the world. But you need a name right? Some are too lazy I guess to research if the name they like is already existing.. This is easy, just type in artist name + music or band in the search engine.

My artist name was also "hijacked" by an US based synthpop duo in 2017 or so. Either did not look up if the name already exists or they thought I am gone, dead or quit music because in fact since 2013 I did not "release" anything. But now in 2020 I restarted music and I am now sorted 2nd with the name at last.fm or Discogs. Even if I was the first with the name. Trouble is now when I release new music it will be lumped together on some sites like Spotify etc. I even got a remix credit on Discogs which the others did - not me. 

Any tipps ? The only solution I came up with is adding something to my name like "the 1st" or "the original" 



 

[Padmapani]

filipe is known as lost buddha or pandemonium (maybe also amithaba buddha and chynacid if we're generous). i wouldn't consider the other artist names taken tbh.

[RTP]

Hi ... well, if the name is not a trademark, there's no law violated.
Few people will do this, but here is some info if you want to protect your "artist trademark": https://www.musicindustryhowto.com/how-to-trademark-a-music-artist-name-a-step-by-step-guide-for-musicians/

so ... you can be a bit angry, but there's very little you can do actually - or also them. It may then just be a case of "who screams louder" - or who's got the better community to battle it out for them. In reality, however, one of the two parties will respond by choosing another name because everything else is just too much hassle. I do think, though, that if somebody can come up with an official release that is older than your release, they should have the right to use the name.

Sure you can just go ahead and use the name "Gaiaga" - and I doubt that Filipe would have contacted you and demand you to rename yourself if you had done so (not you, KER, your mate) ... however, with all the talking here I suspect Filipe will now have an eye on that and defend the Gaiaga name ... if he's mean. (He reads these forums for sure, even if not as an active member.)
I would agree that Filipe should damn well go and use another of his dozens of aliases, because so many artists names is just lame ... but if it comes to a dispute, he can prove he used the name before ... it's unclear what will come out then.

So the best is go talk to Filipe, write him a message and then you'll know it's either fine or not.

I am puzzled how it is so important and / or difficult to find an artist name ... I can come up with almost a dozen in a few minutes:

Aknitrash
Bintrikkus
Chaddastric Feed
Dattrik Pentecus
Evenizaph
Flanellator
GantriK
Haar Sachatzzu
Ingenious Irdengrum
Jolt Bolt van Overholdt
Omburg Urgenheim ( <- for darkpsy?)

(don't wanna bore ya...)

[psytones]

BTW. Regarding AION (Norway) vs. AION (Mexico) This is a self-release before Kali Earth Records officially released it with some upgraded details. Now look at the date.
http://aion.bandcamp.com/album/scepter-of-the-machine-construct That's right. 3rd of Sept. 2018 Vive la Norvège. MexicoAion can go eat a bowl of dated Guacamole. The way he threatened the artist, the label, and whatnot throwing bullshit around. Buenas tardes. Ditt nek. 

I vote Gaiaga, but let's see what the humble and talented Aion from Norway decides for himself and his future releases. I wish him all the best. 

P.L.U.R. 

[Tsotsi]

On 8/20/2020 at 10:01 PM, AstralSphinx said:

Since both are in the same scene, it has the potential to create more confusion in the future, should the other artist chose to make more releases under that alias.

I think this is the main consideration, I wouldn't rename in a situation like Multi-Media where a synth pop group has come along. That being said I have a feeling that heaps of Psytrance artists share names, and I see heaps of rock and metal groups do this too, can make it hard to look for a specific artist but it is always feasible and sometimes a rewarding challenge.

 

On 8/18/2020 at 11:34 PM, KER said:

I'm almost tempted to tell him that "fuck it, use the name.

This is how I actually feel though, it's a name/title/identity, it's personal and if he is Aion or if he is Gaiaga that is as simple as that, no one is making enough money monotizing their music to make an argument that someone is 'stealing/hijacking' unless it is being done maliciously and on purpose. In this case I say the Mexican Aion is trying to hard to 'protect' his brand. I know KER's Aion through Kali Earth and don't find it hard to search his releases. Although who knows if I've listened to Mexican Aion thinking it was the Norseman.

THAT BEING SAID, I recently created a youtube channel that I wanted to call 'Synesthesia' and even though Youtube allows multiple channels to have the same name I decided to change the name as I haven't actually created anything yet and found a channel with that name already existing. This is a case of me not having an identity already attached to the name though, In the case of Multi-Media or Aion (Norway) they are established enough that they should be able to keep their artist name.

[Basilisk]

Naming creative projects is tough enough to begin with, now add 7 billion human beings and a century of increasingly diverse and productive music production and you've got a recipe for name conflicts and shortages. Obviously the best thing to do is pick something completely unique that has zero results on Google (and doesn't sound like any other artist after you account for non-standard spelling). Failing that, picking a name not used in your target genre/market might be acceptable, if the other entity with your name is not too well known in theirs... but in general, as soon as you are mucking around with names that have been widely used, you're asking for trouble. Do your research, check and double check. Or at the very least look into a dictionary to avoid silly mistakes (ahem, Bizzare Contact).

On the other hand, even those of us with well-established identities will sometimes have problems... I've been "Basilisk" for 20+ years but I'm far from the only one. Luckily the others are mostly metal bands or doing electro-industrial or something not very related to what I'm known for... but in the last several years a new Basilisk has emerged in Germany, playing mostly hard techno, but often appearing on line-ups at psytrance-adjacent events... I've spoken with him at length and he's been very disrespectful about the whole situation, but I'm not about to abandon an identity I've had for so long... guess I'll just have to beat him at his own game, huh? Sometimes your best option is just to compete in the marketplace of ideas and artistic expression.

As an aside, Beatport has been doing something a little peculiar as of late: throwing the country of origin into the names of artists with conflicting names... so now you've got Mohn and Mohn (NL), for example... and since that's the actual name listed on Beatport, this same info ends up in Discogs, and in some extreme cases I've even seen artists adopt these modifiers as their official names on SoundCloud, Facebook, etc.!

[Immerse]

First of all, hi guys! I'm kind of a lurker on here and never said much but wow this is such a relevant topic to me right now. I actually asked the a similar question on r/psytrance a few hours ago.  I am lucky that in my situation the name is with slightly different spelling and the other artist is in a different genre.

This Feliipe guy you said you had an unpleasant experience.. I don't know much about that encounter but hopefully when a shit-uation like this arises we can all be cool headed and reasonable folks. It's a tricky topic.. I have also been searching for a name since I started to make some progress in my work but sooo many are taken.. even some of the most abstract ones you can think...

I was more interested from a legal perspective too, if this is copyright etc... I am no lawyer and have no clue thus I went to reddit to look for answers... as RTP mentioned it doesn't seem to be legal violation... still... kinda sucks if someone in the same genre took your name before you made it ''official''.

I am not sure about the etiquette here for sharing links and hope its ok,  if you care to chime in here is my reddit post:

 

[Multi-Media]

On 8/24/2020 at 11:27 AM, Basilisk said:

 

As an aside, Beatport has been doing something a little peculiar as of late: throwing the country of origin into the names of artists with conflicting names... so now you've got Mohn and Mohn (NL), for example... and since that's the actual name listed on Beatport, this same info ends up in Discogs, and in some extreme cases I've even seen artists adopt these modifiers as their official names on SoundCloud, Facebook, etc.!

 

Hi,
I believe Discogs does not list / allows entries as "release" which are only streaming based, or? They do allow download releases to be listed however. This is not so bad with country modifier I think. However there is a danger a new artist will be created at Discogs for Mohn? That would then lead again to confusion I mean your name is Mohn and Discogs gives Mohn (3) name (when 2 other Mohns already exist), but it may show up then as Mohn NL (2) if another Mohn in NL already exists  And your releases now are on 2 different names...

What about eg. Spotify ? I asked this above already and researched a bit and it seems they will just put your stuff together with an existing artist there if you have the same name. I am not on Spotify / Beatport etc. My last "release" on a d/l compilation was in 2013. From what I have read one must jump through some "hoops" to get this situation sorted out. Can it be prevented before you send music to Spotify/Apple music etc.? I believe only when your name differs at least a bit from an artist already existing there. Does anyone liked my idea above adding something to your name ? If not, what could be done ?

Edit, or is just do not care the best idea ? I mean the nets are so overflown with music anyway..

[RTP]

You are funny. Of course there's name collisions. There's a 1000 people out there called Christian, just to name an example. Such collisions are prone to happen.

All of that wouldn't happen if you enhanced your name with for example an Ethereum address.

You can be AION 0xDECAF9CD2367cdbb726E904cD6397eDFcAe6068D (address just an example, please make your own Ethereum address, this one is taken, please don't send any ETH there, it's not my address)

Nobody could copy you, because you are the only one who's got the private key matching that address. If somebody wants proof, make them send you some ETH and you send the ETH back. Voila.

And the other guy should go and make his own Ethereum address. No more mixing up!

If you used that format, you'd also have a donation address right there in the name...

I would, however, try to win the mexican AION guy over - and for example make a collab track? AION vs AION

[Padmapani]

On 8/24/2020 at 6:37 PM, AstralSphinx said:

 

isn't it kinda amusing how much overlap there seems to be between metal and goa/psy naming of projects for some funny reason?

it's certainly interesting. i have an artist name in mind in case i'll some time in the future release some tracks, but there's already a metal band with the exact same name.

[Immerse]

All of that wouldn't happen if you enhanced your name with for example an Ethereum address. OMG I'm dying 

[Proxeeus]

21 hours ago, RTP said:

All of that wouldn't happen if you enhanced your name with for example an Ethereum address.

That line won the whole thread and no mistake.

[Manuser]

If one day I make music, it will come up with the name "to the moon" + my ETH address 

[Immerse]

Ok guys small correction... don't invest your future in ethereum rather be an OG and use a bitcoin addy pls. 

[Multi-Media]

On 8/26/2020 at 1:25 AM, Padmapani said:

it's certainly interesting. i have an artist name in mind in case i'll some time in the future release some tracks, but there's already a metal band with the exact same name.

This reminds me, long ago, I was browsing the Metal category in a 2nd hand CD shop in Essen (I lived there for a while) I found a CD named "Cassandras Nightmare", it was 6 or 7 Euro, I remembered I had some MP3 from an artist with the same name which I quite liked, but that was (as most of you know) some kind of dark goa. Bought CD, researched and turned out that there was a Death Metal Band "Xenomorph" too. I like Deathmetal but the electronic one is better than the metal one in this case

[Multi-Media]

On 8/25/2020 at 11:29 PM, RTP said:

and for example make a collab track? AION vs AION

No it would be more like (example)
AION (UK) (4) vs. AION (RUS) (12) 

[KER]

OK good people, thanks for your patience. So let's begin the continuing a bit. First of all, as you might know, Aion decided to not use the other names he wanted that this guy has hijacked XD .. And after a long time thinking and feeling on it, he went with a variation of Aion, and is now known as A1ON. See what he did there. He just changed the 'i' to a '1'. A1on. So as his first release, we made sure it sounded and looked good: https://kaliearth.bandcamp.com/album/chalice-of-the-void-ep

And here is an answer to You. To OWN a name, costs money. To legally own the rights to it. If Aion, hrm, I mean A1ON was rich. He could have bought the name and owned it all over the world for something like 20 000 Euros. And to own it in 1 country, costs like 200 Euros. ...... We did joke about buying the Aion name in Mexico.. tho jokes aside. It feels better to leave the name. A1ON, or Henning Winter as his real name is, still uses DJ Aion when DJing. None can take that away from him:)

Do you Spotify much, here, go and follow him, show some support (and thank you if you buy his debut A1ON EP): 

PS. This is A1ON's last Aion release: https://kaliearth.bandcamp.com/album/balder-ep

Look at that, Aion (Norway) (10)



Yeap, it's always best to keep it original or unique.

[KER]

On 8/25/2020 at 3:54 PM, Immerse said:

 

This Feliipe guy you said you had an unpleasant experience..

No no, that was the Mexican Aion, not Feliipe. Feliipe just hijacked one trillion Artist names ;P .. Aion (Mexico) is the one who was threatening. As 'psytones' writes above, Aion (Norway)'s debut (self-release) was Before Aion (Mexico), tho' mexico had a label release Before Aion (Norway). ....... Your head is allowed to spin if this makes it so. hehe

PS. Aion (Norway) was originally Aion (8) on discogs.com, but mexico stole it. So now norway is (10). 

Also as RTP writes, a Aion vs. Aion track would be a cool thing to do, and KER actually asked him.. But he declined. 

Anyway, A1ON for the win.