CEASE & DESIST LETTERS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE – OLD BLOOD & GUTS EDITION

Here is a marketing conundrum. How do you brand a $575,000 specialty vehicle, built on a Ford truck chassis, that is designed to look like a tank? If you answered “Name it after General George S. Patton” give yourself a 21-gun salute. But here’s the rub—in one of the most astute tactical moves of his storied military career, Patton…

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NOT ONE PENNY FOR TRIBUTE

Music professor, rock historian, and guitarist John Covach has suggested that tribute bands may play an important role in the future of rock music, keeping up a live performance tradition long after the original acts are gone, much as a symphony orchestra keeps the classical repertoire alive. If so, a newly filed case reported on…

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OWNING HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Stick around until the lights come up after any movie in which characters sing “Happy Birthday to You” (and there are probably a dozen of those every year), and one of the last credits you see will be a copyright notice for that song, noting that it was used with the permission of Warner/Chappell Music,…

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