There’s now only one “One Direction” – and it isn’t the Tres Pinos band that claimed to own the band name rights in a legal battle with a U.K. pop sensation, according to media reports.
The two bands came to a settlement that was announced earlier this month, according to the BBC and other outlets.
The five-member Tres Pinos band had claimed to launch the band as “One Direction” before the Simon Cowell-produced British band came to fruition in the summer of 2010, but under the settlement the U.K. band – which released an album that reached the top of the Billboard 200 earlier this year – will keep its name and the local group will go by “Uncharted Shores,” according to the BBC.
The Tres Pinos band had been pursuing $1 million along with some royalties and filed for a trademark on its name in February 2011, pursuing ownership of the moniker.
The now-resolved squabble between the bands has been followed by a broad spectrum of media outlets such as Rolling Stone, MTV, NBC’s “The Today Show” and the BBC.
The Tres Pinos band includes Sean O’Leary, Scott Nagareda, Skylar Campbell, Tyler Rodriguez and Klaus Campbell.
While the U.K. band was formed on the British version of “The X Factor” in July 2010, the Tres Pinos group in November 2011 told the Free Lance, in an interview about a Battle of the Bands competition, that it had launched in October 2010.
Tres Pinos band members previously reported receiving an abundance of hate mail from fans of the U.K. group.
As an example of their intertwining, when Cowell’s One Direction group appeared on the “Today” show in April, music played in a promotion for the group’s performance was actually from the song “2012” by the San Benito County band.
