Saturday, January 8, 2011

Should I have challenged?

A funny thing happened to me when I was registering
my publishing company
name with ASCAP
(American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers).


ASCAP requested that I submit three possible names
so they can do an
international search and
register a name. I really wanted "I Ching Music"
since as a composer I
write music using scales
a based on the patterns of the I Ching.


So I entered that name and two others that I was quite
sure were taken.
SO, a couple of months later,
I received the letter: "Congratulations we

have done an international search and have assigned
you the name EDITION
PETERS".

I was shocked. The C. F. Peters Corporation, which
is an old and very well
established company, uses
"Edition Peters" on the top of all their music!


What would you have done?

I could have gone through with the registration and
had a huge amount of
name recognition built into my
company, but thought only of law suits. I
called
ASCAP and C. F. Peters and I ended up just backing
down. CFP said
they never thought about registering
"Edition Peters".


Am I too honest?

Should I have gone with the dangerous name?

Richard O. Burdick