Internet Name Trademark

What is the name of your state? AZ.

Hello - I am in the process of building a retail music website, reselling cd's. There is a current website that is labeled as a record company with a similiar name. Ie; Blunt force music vs. Blunt force Records. They have a copyright next to Blunt Force, which is a fairly generic term. As they own a record company and I am a retail music store, am I potentially infringing on the Blunt Force name?

IMHO, yes. How much money are you willing to spend to defend yourself in court? That is the question you need to be asking yourself.

I guess that's why I posted the question. What % likelyhood am I in the wrong? Another question might be, how much is this other person willing to spend in court? It would seem to me, that if my business is different than his and his copyright is on a generic term, then my argument would be that he should have to go after anyone posting the term Blunt Force on the internet. According to a response on this issue earlier, it was pointed out that this is why McDonalds would have to go after any business not matter how small that might infringe on their copyrighted material. Because, if they do not, they are in effect forfeiting the copyright. I took that to mean that they cannot arbitrarily go after some, but not all. Wouldn't this logic also apply to my situation?
But, to answer your point, I don't have the funds to go to court, but they probably don't either.

This is a trademark issue, not a copyright issue.

Do they have their trademark registered with the USPTO? You can search the PTO website, www.uspto.gov, and see if they have a registered trademark. If they do, that gives them a lot of leverage.

As for whether you are "in the wrong" or not, well, that's question of fact for a court to decide. Trademark infringement is a "likelihood fo confusion" issue. Two of the main things the court will look to in order to determine likelihood of confusion is similarity of the marks and similarity of the markets. You are using a name essentially identical to theirs, and are in essentially the same market space -- these are two VERY large strikes against you.

The fact that the term "blunt force" is generic will only be useful to you if you either challenge their trademark or take this to court -- but although "blunt force" may seem to you as "generic" its almost certainly not "generic" in a trademark sense. "Books" as the name of a bookstore is generic; "Books" as the name of a gun shop is most likely not. Whether or not a trademark is generic is not as cut-and-dried as youmight think.

"But, to answer your point, I don't have the funds to go to court, but they probably don't either."

I wouldn't count on this. If they are actually a record company -- even a small one -- they very likely have an attorney on retainer to handle contract issues and the like who might be very interested in some trademark litigation to spice things up.

Finally, you mentioned that you are dealing with websites. If the record company has a registered trademark, or a registration in progress, they can go to ICANN and file a domain name dispute and sieze your domain name if they prevail-- and that really doesn't cost much at all.

I appreciate the advice. And, although they do not have a Trademark, I have chosen to take the high road and get another name. I have checked and at least to this point, there is no other online company and no trademark listing for the new name. I will put a TM on it once I'm online, then add the truer trademark once I can afford too.

Thanks again.