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Don't
Look Now - But Someone's watching You
Sounds
24/7/82
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COMSAT ANGELS have had to change their name in
America after some heavy legal pressure from the
Communication Satellite Corporation of
America, who appear to have gained knowledge of
the band's touring plans within minutes of the
contracts being signed. |
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The
Sheffield four-piece band, who've already released
two albums on Polydor, originally chose
their name from the short story The Comsat
Angels by J G Ballard. A year ago
the band's management received a letter from
lawyers representing the Communication Satellite
Corporation, who also do a lot of secret military
work for the Pentagon, saying that the word
Comsat was a registered trade mark in America
and that the group had no authority to use the
name.
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correspondence between the group and the corporation
lawyers continued for a couple of months before dying
away, but last month the band began preparing their
first American tour to begin in mid-July. On Friday
July 2 the final list of dates was telephoned and telexed
from America to England and contracts for the whole
tour were agreed at 5pm. At 5.30pm the group's manager
received a telephone call from lawyers from the Communication
Satellite Corporation saying that if the group used
the name Comsat Angels they would injunct every single
club where the band were due to play across America
to prevent them playing. And just to prove they meant
business, they reeled off the complete list of dates
the band had agreed to half an hour earlier.
The
band then took advice from Polydor's American
lawyers, who reckoned that they could win any court
case but that it would cost up to 20,000 dollars to
do so and they’d have to go to court in every
state of America in which they were playing. This
was clearly impracticable from a financial point of
view and so negotiations began over an alternative
name which the band could use in America.
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They
certainly have no intention of changing it in
any other country. After the Cosmic Angels received
a thumbs down from the band, they eventually agreed
on CSA (formerly The Comsat Angels), although
they will only be able to use the brackets for
this tour. |
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What's
intriguing is how the Corporation managed to find
out the complete group itinerary within minutes of
it being finalised.
Readers
may like to ponder upon ways in which a leading communications
satellite company specialising in military work might
discover such information.
As
part of the deal worked out between the band and the
company, the band are only allowed to give an objective
statement about the whole affair to any journalist
who might ask. But Sounds can reveal that
personally, the members of The Comsat Angels are not
amused.
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