X-Factor bosses screw over children’s charity

By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 12 October 2011

A Kent-based charity is facing the prospect of having to change its name after a girl group competing on ‘X-Factor’ decided to pick the same moniker to perform under.

The group is Rhythmix which, apparently, is this series of the tedious talent show’s equivalent of One Direction, ie a bunch of wannabe pop stars who entered as solo artists but who were glued together into a group by the show’s judges and producers, presumably because the groups category of the contest was lacking in ‘X-Factor’ friendly entrants.

Having been glued together, the girls had to come up with a name and they – possibly assisted by producers – chose Rhythmix. But, and here’s the thing, there’s a music education charity by the same name, which works with children who have been bereaved, who are disabled, or who have been sent to youth detention centres, using music as a method to aid personal and communicative development. Operating since 1999, it owns the trademark in the name in the educational space.

Now, although it is an educational organisation, given that music is at the heart of what it does, the charity felt that having a big ‘X-Factor’ style pop outfit on the scene using the same name could cause confusion, and might prevent it from fund-raising by selling merchandise or staging events using its own name. If nothing else, in the internet age, it will damage the charity’s online profile, which is important both for raising funds and promoting the organisation’s work to those who could benefit from it.

With this in mind, and given the ‘X-Factor’ machine had only just come up with the name, and hadn’t actually invested any time or money into turning it into a pop music brand, managers at the charity were hopeful that if they got in touch with the show’s makers they would be understanding and encourage the girls to think of a new moniker.

But, according to Kent News, what actually happened was that show bosses passed the matter onto their media lawyers who, as big business law firms paid mega-bucks to intimidate small organisations so often do, sent a rather harsh letter back to the charity which basically told them they didn’t have a case to block the show’s use of the name under trademark law so they should just move along and stop whinging. And there was us thinking this was a matter of basic decency and not the intricacies of intellectual property laws.

According to Rochester People, the CEO of the charity, Mark Davyd, says: “We assumed we would just be able to give them a ring, they’d realise their mistake, and that would be that. Instead, they have refused and been unbelievably arrogant. Their attitude is that they simply do not care. Now we’re having to use money we could have used on children on paying legal fees. If they win we’ll not be able to do things we normally do like stage concerts under the Rhythmix name, or to print t-shirts with the name on”.

So, there you go. ‘X-Factor’, ITV, Syco, FremantleMedia, Sony Music, Gary Barlow, Kelly Rowland, Tulisa Contostavlos, Dermot O’Leary, Louis Walsh and Simon Cowell all hate children. You heard it here first.

READ MORE ABOUT: Rhythmix | X-Factor