Once again you have to ask the question: why have an official web site when you don't put any news or communications with your fans on it?

To: vh@yahoogroups.com
From: bradman@van-halen.com
Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 11:24:43 -0700
Subject: [vh] More From the Lawyers...

From the lawyers....

"A decision has been made to also permit fan web sites to license the use of the trademarked Van Halen logo on their web sites. This will be covered in the same licensing agreement as the Frankenstein design that will be made available at www.van-halen.com in approximately one week."

In VH we trust,

Brad
The Official Van Halen Web Site
http://www.van-halen.com

Yesterdays statement that sites could no longer use the 5150 and VH logos was met with outrage from Van Halen fans.

No doubt this outrage got back to Eddie (or his lawyers) so he's now going to allow fan sites to use the Van Halen and 5150 logos under the proposed licensing agreement for the Frankenstein design.

My only advice to the webmasters of fan sites is to adopt a "wait and see" approach before signing any agreement to use the official logos. When the licensing agreement is released next week, read over it carefully and bring any reservations you have to the whole VH fan community on your preferred message board or mailing list.

The fear I have about this whole idea of licensing the logos is if a fan site somehow gets "off-side" with the band.

Using myself as a hypothetical, what would happen if I decided to sign an agreement and decked out this site with nice official VH logos instead of the awesome Garth Jones caricatures. A few weeks down the track I get on my soap box and write an editorial asking why we always hear Van Halen news from golf magazines rather than the official site.

Someone passes this article to Eddie, he gets pissed off and says "That's it, I'm tired of that hack from Australia criticising me! Brad, tell him his license to use the VH logo is officially revoked!"

If you believe that the band and their lawyers don't visit the fan sites, think again. Their swift backdown on the use of the Van Halen logo in the last 24 hours proved that they listen when they want to and are very tuned in to this latest saga.

If you don't think this (revoking licenses) could happen, I admire your optimism.

There are always going to be gray areas with this kind of thing. While the licensing will be free, it will be at their discretion if a site gets approved. Reading between the lines, this could be a good time for the band to put pressure on sites they don't approve of.

Sites with a focus on bootlegs, for example, may not gain permission to use the logo. I'm only speculating, but if all sites were given carte blanche to use the logo no matter what the content, there'd be no point setting up an official licensing scheme, would there?

Jun 22, 2001 - Notice
This space has intentionally been left blank. If you have highlighted this text you will see that it really says nothing. The purpose of it being here is to pad out this table cell, so that the cell on the right goes hard against the right side of the page. Without this text, the table could end up anywhere!