The latest filing in a decade-long intellectual property dispute reveals that a 2013 email chain birthed one of pop music's most famous monikers. Now, the artist is fighting to ensure an indie duo cannot strip her of the right to publicly announce she is no longer them.
In a bruising trademark dispute that has consumed more billable hours than most mid-budget streaming acquisitions, a newly unearthed 2013 email chain has been entered into evidence in the ongoing legal cage match between avant-pop star FKA Twigs and the Chicago-based indie rock duo The Twigs. At stake in the March lawsuit is a cornerstone of modern entertainment branding: the exclusive, legally protected right to continuously remind the global public of a decade-old cease-and-desist letter.
The correspondence, filed in federal court this week, details a 2013 exchange in which the indie duo allegedly instructed the rising British singer to "embrace a new name" to avoid market confusion in the highly contested small-wood-fragment sector. Rather than select a different flora-based identifier, the singer opted to permanently affix the acronym for "Formerly Known As" to her moniker, transforming a standard trademark capitulation into a globally recognized avant-garde brand.
This is a landmark case for the intellectual property rights of the legally vanquished. My client simply wants to protect her hard-earned equity in telling the world, on every album cover and festival poster, that she was once legally threatened by a band no one has heard of since 2013.
The Twigs, who have reportedly not seen a measurable bump in Spotify monthly listeners despite technically winning the initial 2013 skirmish, argue that the pop star's continued use of "FKA" constitutes a daily, structural reminder of their existence, which they claim is somehow damaging to their brand. Representatives for FKA Twigs maintain that the singer has built massive global market share in the specific concept of not being the other band, and will fiercely litigate any attempt to force her to be formerly known as anything else.