That headline sounds so much worse than it is. The Gauntlet linked to this article on anwalt24.de, reporting that Apocalyptica has been ordered to pay Rammstein €45,000 for trademark use. What it boils down to is that Apocalyptica's marketing team advertised the World's Collide album, which included a German version of Bowie's Heroes ('Helden') featuring Till Lindemann singing and Richard Kruspe on guitar, as 'Featuring Rammstein'. This use of the Rammstein trademark was unauthorised (and obviously unpaid for), so it is now being paid for:
I've seen this excellent album touted as 'featuring Rammstein' myself, but it doesn't annoy me half as much as seeing the Puhdys track Wut will nicht sterben (also featuring the vocal talents of Till Lindemann) described as a Rammstein song. Rammstein don't describe it as such, but a lot of very silly Rammstein fans do. Stop it!
Update 20110111: Please see this post for the correction to this story.
Die Parteien einigten sich auf die Zahlung von 45.000 Euro als angemessene Lizenzgebühr.
The parties agreed to the payment of €45,000 as a reasonable royalty.
I've seen this excellent album touted as 'featuring Rammstein' myself, but it doesn't annoy me half as much as seeing the Puhdys track Wut will nicht sterben (also featuring the vocal talents of Till Lindemann) described as a Rammstein song. Rammstein don't describe it as such, but a lot of very silly Rammstein fans do. Stop it!
Update 20110111: Please see this post for the correction to this story.
No comments:
Post a Comment