It couldn’t have happened to a better-named defendant.
The Guess Who, a Canadian rock band, has continued over the years from its late-60s/early-70s heyday. Or hasn’t.
Depending upon your ontology.
Yes. Theory of being.
The original band, known best for the hit “American Woman,” was originally made up of Randy Bachman, Burton Cummings, Jim Kale, and Garry Peterson, and became one of the first big Canadian exports to American and world popular music. But Bachman left in 1970, at the peak of the band’s fame — to create Bachman-Turner Overdrive — and lead-singer Cummings left five years later. Now these two are suing Kale and Peterson and the corporation that is the band itself.
According to The Rolling Stone, they call the “current lineup a ‘cover band’” and object to the band’s usage of photos from its classic period to, in the words of the suit, “give the false impression that Plaintiffs are performing as part of the cover band.”
Wikipedia says the band broke up in 1975, but was revived by Kale and Peterson.
Now, this is none of our business; we can hope the courts adjudicate it justly. But because it reminds us of the Ship of Theseus, discussed as a thought experiment by Plutarch and Thomas Hobbes, it’s hard to let this one go. An old ship has its planks and other parts replaced piece by piece, over time. Is the all-new ship the same as the old?
Obviously, Bachman and Cummings don’t like being treated as so much old lumber. Regardless, wouldn’t there be an estoppel motion, or something like that, preventing litigation over the haecceity of a band named “The Guess Who”?
These eyes expected them to share the band, if not the land.
This is Common Sense — and I’m . . . Guess Who.
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3 replies on “Theseus’ Ship Sure Rocked and Rolled”
I remember hearing, as a young man, that the Ink Spots would be performing in a city near to which I lived. I was surprised and pleased at the thought that they were still-or-again performing. Of course, actually they weren’t. Literally more than a hundred groups have called themselves “the Ink Spots” since the original group ceased to perform. The vast majority have had no members from the original group. These groups are thus more like George Washington’s axe than like the Ship of Theseus. Less dishonorably, these groups might call themselves “Some Ink Spots”.
I’ve never been a fan of the Three Stooges, but I counted twenty men who were at one point in a team either with Moses Harry Horwitz (a.k.a. “Moe Howard”) or with Joseph Besser (in other words, having been in an unbroken chain including the original Three). Still more stooges claiming to be Stooges can be found without that connection. I submit that “the Three Stooges” is fine as a name, but somewhat misleading as a description.
Was a big fan of Bachman as BTO, liked Burton. Was a semi fan of the Guess Who, a little too soft rock for me. I look at this suit as a bit frivolous but would recommend not putting Randy or Burton’s picture out as advertising.
Just how many bands/groups are still intact 50ish years later? I can think of one. This would be opening a HUGE can of wotms
That can has already been mostly or entirely handled by the courts, dealing with names such as “the Ink Spots” and “the Platters”. What Bachman and Cummings are demanding is not that the group stop calling itself “the Guess Who”, but that images of Bachman and Cummings not be used deceptively in promoting that group.