Metallica billed tribute band Sandman $1 for logo license, pay for it themselves

Posted by on January 15, 2016

One of the best things it can happen to your tribute band is getting a thumbs up from the band you’re tributing and that’s what happened to the Canadian cover band, Sandman, after they got hit by a 41-page cease-and-desist letter from Metallica’s lawyer over the use of their trademarked font.

After Metallica was made aware of what their lawyer was doing, the band immediately revoked the letter and apologized to them by giving them the blessing to continue using their logo for their performances. As we mentioned on the previous stories, trademark laws are very strict and you have to be diligent on defending it and proceed in every way to avoid losing it, so the multi-million band was forced to charge Sandman for the use of their stylized font and they sent them a bill…for $1, which they paid themselves.

Sandman’s frontman Joe Di Taranto, sent an updated to One On One with Mitch Lafon podcast and stated the following:

I just got off the phone with Metallica’s management and they and the band had no idea their lawyers sent us the C & D papers. Lars got wind of everything today and was completely pissed that they sent us the papers for `something so stupid` lol. They are really sorry about everything and want us to go back to using any logos, etc. that we want. They are even going to license us the logo for $1 (which they said we don`t even need to pay lol). So all in all they were really cool and wanted to make sure we know that they fully support us. Pretty crazy lol. All good though.

We are enjoying this story more than we should but we’re glad everything already got worked out and now Canada has a famous Metallica cover band to boast about. Pretty good, eh?

[via Metal Hammer]

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