I know that in the long run, if you use an artist name, you'll need some kind of commercial protection for it. What I was wondering is, how soon should I realistically worry about it?
I was thinking of doing this right at the start, but the thing is, this stuff is costly, especially if you go to a specialized lawyer. My gut instinct would be to just wait for a while, and see how things are going first. Then if I should ever come to a point when I see some kind of success, I'd worry about it. But in the meantime, anyone else could trademark the same name and then give me trouble.

What's been the common experience with this - do artists realistically have some time before having to worry about this stuff, and has there ever been a case when an artist wanted to trademark their name but found that someone else had snagged it from them, forcing a rebrand? I'm confused as to how urgent this matter is, and how reasonable it would be to just wait for a (possibly long) time before worrying about this stuff and shelling out ungodly amounts of money for it.

 

You have to look at this from a practical standpoint.

2 artists have the same name.
The cost of litigation

Whoever has the most money / usually the bigger artist is the one that will prevail.

The point of trademark law is to avoid someone being confused for someone else due to 2 parties using the same name. This means the artist had to be of similar popularity.

And trademarks only protect you if you have the money to litigate it. Most people worrying about this shit don't make enough money from music in their lifetime to cover the lawyer fees for setting up the trademark.

 

When girls come and say that "you're the one".. and ask for a DNA test