Hey @Topshop, you’re selling a $700 leather jacket with my bands name on it and you have no permission. Not cool. pic.twitter.com/fxdBF9w6Uy
— Laura Jane Grace (@LauraJaneGrace) September 17, 2016
When it comes to using band names or artist’s names for commercial purposes, in most cases, you can’t use that name on merchandise you create if you don’t own the copyright to it. Seeing as how you’re not the artist, it’s highly unlikely that you would.
That being said, shops like British clothing store Topshop don’t seem to get that, at least if them manufacturing and selling a $700 leather jacket complete with band names on it is anything to go by (and don’t even get me started on the rip-off-ness of a $700 Topshop jacket — especially because the quality of a lot of what they sell is really not that good).
But this travesty of a Topshop leather jacket included band names The Vandals and Laura Jane Grace‘s band Against Me!.
Grace, however, proved she was having none of it as she tweeted at Topshop a couple of days ago with a photograph of the jacket and this message “Hey @Topshop, you’re selling a $700 leather jacket with my bands name on it and you have no permission. Not cool.”
Interestingly, however, Topshop did take notice of Grace’s Twitter complaint (well, impending lawsuit probably had them jump to attention), and responded to her within 24 hours with “@LauraJaneGrace Hi there, we’re looking into this. We have removed the jacket from our website & are currently withdrawing from stores.”
Good for Laura Jane Grace standing up for her rights, and bad for Topshop trying to scammily make money off bands whose music most of those Topshop execs will never even listen to.