Musical domains questions

[Gerrit]

I would like to start a fan forum about one of my favourite bands who have no forum of their own. As URL for this forum I thought of registering the band name with the .co.uk extention (no gTLD is still available). The domain would not be to resell so no profit intentions involved, only using it for the fan community which is in a way promotion for the band.

However, is a band name considered a trademark, and am I risking a courtcase by registering [band name].co.uk ? Am I better off registering [band name]forum.co.uk ? I fear that adding the word 'forum' would make the domain a bit long, but it may be needed to avoid trademark issues?

I must add one thing: the band is from the USA so my first idea was that they would not be interested in owning the band name with .co.uk themselves. They also allowed [band name].fr to be registered for the purpose of a fan site. But still, I would not really be comfortable with breaking trademark laws. Is a band name considered a TM however?

 

[lzy]

Depends on how anal the band is honestly. To be slightly safer, don't put any advertisements or sponsor links.

If the band have no problem with the .fr I'm sure they'll have no qualms about you getting the .co.uk as long as you dev a fansite.

 

[sashas]

If you do create a fansite and monetize it, it will be an infringement of TM. But I believe that most bands wouldn't care about a fansite running on a ccTLD. If you owned the .com, and then created a site and monetized it, it would've created some problems as the band would've wanted the .com of their name. But since its a .co.uk, I don't see any problems...unless your favorite band is composed of some super assholes..

 

[Fewski]

It is usually a good idea to get in contact with the band and make sure they will not take legal action with you. Depending on the band, most will probably not have a problem with you creating a band site though.