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American band give up One Direction name
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 5 September 2012
One Direction have announced that they have changed their name to Uncharted Shores, the title of their second album. This leaves the British boyband, also known as One Direction, free to use the name as they please.
That’s right, just to clear up any confusion, the US band who launched a legal challenge against the ‘X-Factor’ alumni earlier this year over the One Direction name have backed down, possibly after a large cheque fell into their laps (well, travelling to uncharted shores can be expensive).
As previously reported, One Direction USA said that they formed in 2009, before Simon Cowell first put together his One Direction boyband on the UK version of ‘X-Factor’ in 2010. They also started selling their album ‘The Light’ on iTunes in February 2011 which, while after the UK group had been created, preceded the release of their debut album ‘Up All Night’, in Britain, never mind the US.
The US band added that they were also first to file an application for ownership of the name with the US trademark authorities, and that Cowell’s Syco knew this, because the label was told so by the US Trademark Office when it tried to register the mark for itself. Syco put in a counter claim accusing the US band of trying to cash in on the success of the British group.
The British boyband’s members were adamant that they wouldn’t be changing their name when asked about the matter, and that did always seem like the most likely outcome. Now that the US band have indeed backed down, both parties said in a joint statement earlier this week that they were “pleased with the resolution and wish each other success”.
One Direction US’s management also posted a statement on the band’s Facebook page on Monday, saying: “The California band formerly known as One Direction, whose albums are titled ‘The Light’ and ‘Uncharted Shores’, will now be known as Uncharted Shores”.
So, there you go, a band with a pretty rubbish name now have an even worse name, but at least they’ll stop getting death threats from teenage girls.
