Dweezil Zappa Fund Raiser - Progressive Rock Music Forum

Did anyone else catch this from Dweezil?

http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/othersofintention

Apparently Ahmet and Diva are attempting to trademark the name "Zappa." Go figure, can this get any more bizarre?

He neither drank, smoked, nor rode a bicycle. Living frugally, saving his money, he died early, surrounded by greedy relatives. It was a great lesson to me -- John Barrymore

I don't se how it could possibly be successful legally for Dweezil to be prohibited from using his own name.

This is simply via the facts that (A) "Zappa" is his surname, and (B) he has a long history of performing under his surname.

(B) especially is the sort if thing that trademark law was designed to protect.

So I don't believe that he needs to put much effort into a legal defense of this. I can't imagine any judge or arbitrator who would seriously consider for even two minutes not allowing the Dweez to continue using Zappa.

Edited by Terrapin Station - December 16 2016 at 05:01

I think the ZFT will be trade marking Frank Zappa and Zappa, given Dweezil has been stopped already from using the Zappa Plays Zappa name for his shows and told to stop using the changed DW Plays FZ - refer below.

Taken from http://www.dweezilzappa.com/posts/1982312-cease-and-desist-tour-2016

Questions, questions, questions... flooding into the mind of the concerned young person today! People are asking me, "Why is all this ZFT stuff happening?" The shortest answer is this:

There is a contract dispute that began in 2006 when the Zappa Plays Zappa tour started. My mother reneged on our tour merchandise contract, keeping 100% of the tour merch revenue for herself from 2006-2015. She failed to resolve this injustice in her lifetime. Ahmet and Diva Zappa have the ability to resolve the injustice as trustees of the ZFT. Instead of trying to make things better they have made things worse by demanding to continue to take 100% of the tour merch revenue from me and if I am not agreeable then I am not allowed to continue touring, according to them. I can continue to tour but not as Zappa Plays Zappa. I changed my name to a perfectly legal new name Dweezil Zappa Plays Frank Zappa. Since then they have sent me misguided threats of prosecution and another CEASE and DESIST letter. It has become quite an unfortunate situation. The odd part is I offered them a very fair and generous opportunity to sell ZFT merch on my tour to which I would split 50/50. I didn't have to do that. Surprisingly, they rejected it. I guess they would rather have 100% of nothing than 50% of something. Anyway that ship has sailed...

I can offer you some insight in to the questions I have myself by sharing the conclusion of my lawyer's response to the most recent Cease and Desist letter I received from the ZFT.

"Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes"
and I need the knits, the double knits!

Money will f**k families up...

"Es ist übrigens unmöglich, eine Meinung zu haben, ohne dass es unerfreuliche Überschneidungen gibt. Die Grünen sind für den deutschen Wald, die NPD ebenfalls."

Just because the fans are only in for the t-shirt...

Music is the refuge of souls ulcerated by happiness.

Emile M. Cioran

octopus-4 wrote:

Let him know about the Italian guitarist Riccardo Zappa. He's using that name from the 70s so a lawsuit against him could payback a lot.

http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2529

that's news to me.... what is his real name then. I couldn't find it. Even the few Italian sources I found quickly don't mention that being a stage name.

The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip

Only have Celestion but a damn fine album it is even if a bit light in the loafers for my normal tastes. Generally unless you are missing a few teeth and from the Appalachians and married to your cousin ...being considered a master of the acoustic guitar, as Andrea describes him, is not exactly normally something that gets me wet and hard. Alas I really don't know much of his other works

The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip

This reminds my of Ernest and Julio Gallo of wine fame suing their brother Joseph to prevent him from using the family name on his cheese and sausage products.

It's all a bunch of BS. I don't really care what sort of battle of name and material they want to have. It won't be with my money.

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