The brand owners of US-based music and arts festival Coachella are suing the brand owners of Ghana-based music festival Afrochella for copyright infringement.
The main bone of contention is the “Chella” name. Coachella organizers, Goldenvoice, claims Afrochella is riding on the coattails of its success.
According to them, Afrochella is “intentionally trading on the goodwill of well-known Coachella and Chella festivals and trademarks by actively promoting music events in the United States and in Ghana using the confusingly similar mark Afrochella.”
Coachella is one of the biggest music festivals in the world; it draws in about 150,000 people per day for its annual music festival which spans over two weekends. The festival has grossed about $100 million since 2016, and headlines GRAMMY-winning artists like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Arooj Aftab and Burna Boy.
Music lovers know and love Coachella, and the festival believes that Afrochella is riding that wave.
In law, one can be held liable for having committed an offense if he creates a business/brand that sounds or looks like an already existing or successful business. Like developing a new soda drink with red and while brand colors and calling it Cola-Coca, or creating a telecom company and giving it a yellow-field logo with black text and calling it MNT or NTN.
If it’s easy for the everyday man to mistake two similar-sounding businesses, then there’s infringement going on.
For Coachella, Afrochella is not only imitating Coachella by using the “Chella” name, it’s also doing graver acts by applying in Ghana to register “Coachella” as a trademark.
“Despite repeated requests from Plaintiffs, Defendants have refused to adopt their own distinctive event name, and as a result, instances of actual confusion have already appeared on social media,” the suit dated October 5 reads.
The lawsuit “seeks injunctive relief and damages for Defendants willful infringement in the United States and to protect the public here from confusion.
