Greg Ginn loses lawsuit against FLAG, Henry Rollins
In August, Greg Ginn of legendary hardcore punks Black Flag sued former bandmate Henry Rollins and FLAG, one of two Black Flag reunion bands, featuring more of Ginn’s former bandmates, Keith Morris, Dez Cadena, Bill Stevenson and Chuck Dukowski. Ginn claimed that FLAG and Rollins filed “fraudulent” applications to copyright the band’s name and logo.
However, Spin reports that a judge has ruled the suit in favor of Rollins and FLAG, finding that neither Ginn nor SST Records has the rights to the band’s logo and name, and upheld the defendants’ claim that the assets were owned by “a statutory partnership comprised of various former band members.” The court also held that Rollins never officially quit the band, and as such is still included in that statutory partnership.
Per the court ruling, “[E]ven if the plaintiffs had some trademark claim in the [name and logo], there was no likelihood of consumer confusion between Black Flag and FLAG given the ample press coverage over the dispute.”
Now, let’s all put this behind us and get back to a circle pit.
Jeff Terich is the founder and editor of Treble. He's been writing about music for 20 years and has been published at American Songwriter, Bandcamp Daily, Reverb, Spin, Stereogum, uDiscoverMusic, VinylMePlease and some others that he's forgetting right now. He's still not tired of it.