A storm is brewing over the legal rights to premier electronic festival Electric Daisy Carnival. Pasquale Rotella currently uses the trademark for the festival, but founder Gary Richards is opening a trademark suit against him.
Billboard is reporting the story surrounding this infamous dance music rivalry. Rotella and Richards have been in competition over the direction of dance music as an industry in the United States. Rotella creates his events around an experience, including carnival rides and extravagant stages, major staples of EDC each year. However, Richards focuses on targeting ‘cool kids’ with promoted rising artists. Billboard’s sources are claiming the tension between Rotella and Richards has gone through the roof.
Both Rotella and Richards were close to working together throughout the years. Richards offered Rotella half ownership of his business, Hard, but he was rejected. Following this, it has only been harder for dance artists who have been the ones punished. One agent Billboard spoke to claims artists who play a festival for one company (Hard or Insomniac) could absolutely not play the festival owned by the other company as well.
In 2013, Rotella sold half of Insomniac for about $50 million. In 2012, Richards sold all of Hard for an unknown figure. The article suggests Richards may feel he got the shorter end of the stick. However, Hard has done well for itself, with Hard Summer reaching 80,000 people last year and the festival cruise Holy Ship now occurring bi-annually. EDC, on the other hand, now offers a diverse lineup rather than appealing solely to the pure EDM niche.
“Disco” Donnie Estopinal, a partner of Rotella’s until splitting in 2012, worries that the competition between the two has gone too far and can be detrimental to this music scene.
It’s difficult to determine how this trademark battle will unfold for Rotella and Richards, but EDM Assassin will keep you updated as the story unfolds. Let us know how you feel about Rotella versus Richards and the trademark ownership in the comments.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/155843750″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/164334033″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]