ACCEPT NO IMITATIONS: REAL BANDS, FAKE BANDS AND TIMA

In 1969, hot on the heels of a hit single, a band calling themselves The Zombies found themselves touring the southern United States. But this was not the British Invasion-cum-psychedelic rock band that had scored big with “Time of the Season” the year before. That band had broken up, and this group of Texas musicians (including future ZZ Top members Dusty Hill and Frank Beard) was assembled by a Michigan promotion company to capitalize on the success of the now-defunct band. In fact, this particular company had two fake Zombies out on the road, attempting to dupe fans (in multiple markets simultaneously) who may not have been aware of what the band members actually looked like.

Nearly a decade later, Sha Na Na’s Jon “Bowzer” Bauman (pictured with microphone) discovered through a series of interviews on his band’s titular television show that multiple classic groups were falling victim to this same scheme. Soundalike bands throughout the country were successfully billing themselves as The Drifters, The Coasters and others, leaving the original artists with little to no legal protection against this scourge of musical identity theft. Bauman took it upon himself to act and co-authored the Truth in Music Advertising bill, or TIMA, to protect these artists from being misrepresented and audiences from being fooled by unscrupulous promoters.

Introduced in 1999, TIMA states that “no person shall advertise or conduct a live musical performance… through the use of a false, deceptive or misleading affiliation, connection or association between a performing group and a recording group.” While it has yet to be federally adopted, 35 states have signed the bill into law as of 2022. As for the remaining states, says RIAA SVP State Public Policy and Industry Relations Rafael Fernandez (pictured at bottom), “It truly comes down to their respective priorities. We have been fortunate to have added four states over the last two years despite states grappling with COVID response, budget cuts and priorities focused on health and safety.”

“Our ability to best identify where to introduce similar legislation next,” Fernandez adds, “will depend on feedback from legacy artists that run into these issues as they start traveling and performing around the country post-COVID.”

Though the aim is for any performing act to have at least one recording member, there are some exceptions to the rule: Bands like Blood Sweat & Tears and Humble Pie, for example, are able to tour with no original members as the groups are managed by original members or at least own the naming rights. Meanwhile, there are competing acts that are legally obligated to include disclaimers in their billing to ensure the audience isn’t misled (for instance, you could see Yes in concert or you could see “Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin and Rick Wakeman”).

While ensuring that artists are actually who they claim to be may seem like an uncontroversial stance, this legislation has been met with no small amount of confusion. Lawsuits over the naming rights to The Drifters drifted on from 1972 to 2010 in a messy series of fights between their current manager and the family of their former manager, which continued even after TIMA was enacted. During those decades, no fewer than 25 vocalists rotated in and out of the lineup, causing enough confusion that Wikipedia actually describes The Drifters as “several vocal groups.”

Bauman continues to campaign for the adoption of TIMA. As he quipped to the California State Assembly: “The bottom line is that these impostors simply need to… yipyipyipyipyipyipyipyip bombombombabombabombom… get a JOB.”