Legal Battles
The seeds of future legal conflict were sown in 1987: with a new lineup and new recording company, the members of Little River Band formed a "clean slate" company known as We Two Pty Ltd. The five band members at that time were made equal shareholders. Band assets, including the name and logo, were transferred into this company. Goble acknowledges that mistakes were made:
"The LRB name was never 'for sale'. It was lost to Stephen Housden because of a legal document that transferred the name to We Two Pty. Ltd. The name should have been licensed, not transferred. We were ill-advised and totally unaware of what we were leaving behind." Graeham Goble (2005)
As the other members left over time, by 1997 Stephen Housden was the sole remaining member, and ownership of We Two Pty Ltd (including rights to the name Little River Band) passed to him. He formed a new version of the band and, with various personnel changes, Little River Band continues to tour North America each year.
When Birtles, Shorrock, and Goble initially proposed to re-form as The Original Little River Band, Housden asserted his rights to the name and took the matter to the Federal Court of Australia. In an out-of-court settlement, it was agreed that Birtles, Shorrock, and Goble would not use the trade mark (name) or logo as the name of their band, or in the name of their band, but "shall be entitled to refer prominently but always only in a descriptive way in promotional and advertising material, to the fact that they were members of the original line up of the Little River Band".
Loss of access to the LRB name for Birtles, Shorrock, and Goble came as a shock to many fans and received considerable attention in the Australian media.
The settlement would be tested repeatedly, including the blocking of a Little River Band retrospective DVD put together by Birtles, Shorrock and Goble. Housden also challenged the manner in which BSG described their link to LRB in promotional material and recordings. Further legal action ensued in Australia and in the United States.
When the Full Circle DVD was released in the United States, a marquee reference to Little River Band on the cover was digitally altered to "?????? ????? ????".
Read more about this topic: Birtles Shorrock Goble
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