One Out Of Two Not Enough For Lady Gaga’s Legal Challenge

Pop icon Lady GaGa recentlylost in her effort to stop a fan Web site from using her name in its URL. A fan set up a site called LadyGaga.org. Ms. Gaga (I guess that’s accurate) challenged the site in an action she brought in her real name, Stefani Germanotta (you never know what you’ll learn reading this blog). In order to prevail, Lady G needed to prove two things – that she had a trademark right in the name and that the site would cause confusion. She nailed the first one. The arbitration panel hearing the case found that she was famous enough to establish trademark rights in her name as far back as 2006. But she lost on the second point. The site was a pretty innocuous fan site, and it contained lots of disclaimers stating that it was not an “official” site. The site made no effort to profit from any connection to Lady G. No word if Lady Gaga maintained a poker face when she got the decision.