So Groove Armada released a song a few years ago called Purple Haze. It had nothing to do with that Purple Haze apart from the name. No Hendrix at all.

And of course, there's loads of examples of songs having the same titles as others. So does Prince actually have any copyright over the names of his songs?

Could someone release, say, the often talked about range of cocktails (Raspberry Beret, Purple Rain, Lemon Crush, etc...) without being slapped with a lawsuit.

Could someone release an entire album of tracks with the same name as Prince tracks (I'm not really talking generic titles here like 'love', etc...), as long as they were entirely different songs?

Can you hold copyright on a song called 'The Most Beautiful Girl In the World', when a song by that name already exists? Or are only the lyrics copyrightable?

Not sure!! but Purple Rain was mentioned in an America song Ventura highway also Neil Young had a song called Cinnamon Girl both well before Prince.

erik319 said:

Song titles can not be copyrighted. For example Van Halen and The Pointer Sisters both had a song entitled "Jump" released in the same year. Even closer to home Prince and the Beatles both had songs entitled "Girl".

CuddlyBear said:

..And there were 3 "who's that girl" and "the Power Of Love"'s knocking about in the mid 80's... Didn't think you could, but just thought it would be interesting to throw it out there...

CuddlyBear said:

Excellent example. And correct in that song titles cannot be copyrighted, only lyrics. The title is simply an identification for a work.

Think if someone 50 years ago had a song called "I Love You". No one could EVER have the same title again, yet 90% of the songs ever written are about love.

The Pointer Sister did later add "(For My Love)" to their title just to avoid confusion at the time, but the song was originally "Jump".

Of course the more unique of a title the better the attention to the song.

Also, let's not forget Jesse had an album called "Shockadelica", and Prince had a song w/ the same name (yes, I know the story behind it all).

erik319 said:

No, a (song) title, names or words generally cannot be copyrighted. They can be trademarked however.

And note, that at least generally, they cannot be copyrighted. It's a disputed issue among copyright lawyers whether that is always the case or whether there are exceptions to the general rule. Those defending the interests of the creative industries argue that in some cases copyright protection should be possible.

A good example would be the name and song title 'Shockadelica'. This was a nonexisting word. The creation of it is therefore highly original and since a certain amount of originality is what is needed for copyright protection, it could be argued that this name and song title is worthy of copyright protection.

Also, if somebody would release an album called Purple Rain, with all the same song titles, but with different compositions and lyrics, a case could still be made that you violate the copyright of the collection of songs, which is a distinct copyright from the copyrights in the separate songs. It would also be an obvious case of unauthorised profiteering off of somebody else's work.

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[Edited 3/24/10 16:30pm]

ernestsewell said:

Yea true...BUT...Ill still put up $1,000 that says he sues the next person to use the song title "My name is Prince".

erik319 said:

In fact there's an old jazz standard named : The most beautiful girl in the world. (I don't remember when or who but I'm sure you can find it...)