Trademarking a name can involve a few different things. First the use of the name. Who can use the name an how. Think of merchandising. If some guy is makeing tons of t-shirts with your band name on it, he can sell them all over the place and not pay you a dime. Now, you could look at this situation as free advertising. However, if your band made all those same shirts that everyone is obviously buying, you would still have all of the same advertising, but you would also have a pocket full of money to go with it. It can as involve how that name is represented. If some guy uses the name of your band in a negative way, you can not do anything about it. This sort of goes the line of defimation of character. Without any trademark/copyright, you do not exist as that character, at least legally. Basically with a trademark, you are protected legally and no one can do stuff with or do stuff to that name without your permission.
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