Blues singer Anita ‘Lady A’ White is countersuing Lady A the group for trademark infringement.
The latter trio – comprising of Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood – thought they had found common ground with the blues singer after they held a private conference on Zoom with her after they allegedly unknowingly switched their name to her moniker from Lady Antebellum in response to the Black Lives Matter movement in June, as the word Antebellum has associations to slavery in the US.
However, in July, the trio announced they were suing Lady A, as they claimed they trademarked the name in 2010 and she did not dispute the move then.
On Tuesday (15.09.20), White filed a lawsuit against Lady A Entertainment LLC and the band members asking for sole usage of the name and compensatory damages.
In a statement announcing their lawsuit, the band had said: "We are sad to share that our sincere hope to join together with Anita White in unity and common purpose has ended.
They added that they "shared our stories, listened to each other, prayed and spent hours on the phone and text writing a song about this experience together.
"We can do so much more together than in this dispute."
The ‘Need You Now’ hitmakers claimed that a representative for Lady A "demanded a $10m [£7.79m] payment" from them.
The trio didn’t want damages from White or for her to change her name, but insisted they do not wish to face anymore legal hassles, and therefore sued her for trying to gain recognition of the trademark "we have held for many years".
However, White’s suit alleged that: "Lady Antebellum’s decision to replace the band name Lady Antebellum with Lady A was undertaken with wilful disregard for Ms. White’s rights in her Lady A trademark, which she has used for nearly thirty years."
It added that White "accrued common law rights in the Lady A trademark … as a result of her long, continuous, and prominent use of the Lady A mark since at least the early 1990s."
White also insists their name change has proved confusing for her fans.
The suit continues: "Internet and social media searches for ‘Lady A,’ which had readily returned results for her music, were now dominated by references to Lady Antebellum.
"Ms. White’s Lady A brand had been usurped and set on the path to erasure."
White also doesn’t believe the group when they say they’ve previously used the "fan-originated Lady A nickname as a trademark" from time-to-time in the past.