Copy, right?

If something is similar, but not exactly the same, can you justify going ahead?

As some of you may or may not know, I am in a band, and we are currently going through a name change scenario - artistic differences, yada, yada.

It is quite a lot more hassle than I originally thought.

The name we originally picked (entirely without any research) has already been taken, so we swapped the words around and designed a new logo. Which is pretty cool in my opinion.

However, the other band with the similar sounding (but not identical) name have a similar logo (but not nearly as good as ours!)

We are based in two different geographical locations, are very different entities, but are now wondering if we should just start all over again, or whether we would have any legal problems with using the name and logo.

I'd love to know what you think! Have you had similar problems on a business name level, and what have you done about it?

I know in the channel, there are firms with very similar names, and indeed several sets of resellers actually have the same name - but they have co-existed nicely side-by-side for many years.

Any thoughts/suggestions are very welcome!