Don Henley Wins Legal Action Against Clothing Retailer

Few artists protect the integrity of their brand more aggressively than Don Henley and The Eagles. Now they've won another round; this time against a Wisconsin retailer selling a henley style shirt.

A clothing retailer in Wisconsin has settled a lawsuit brought by Eagles founding member Don Henley, who alleged trademark infringement.

According to the Wisconsin State Journal , Henley brought legal action against Duluth Trading Co. last year, claiming that the retailer's use of "Don a Henley and Take it easy" was an inappropriate use of Henley's name and the band's song title. A "henley" is a style of shirt (pictured right).

The Journal said the Belleville-based company agreed to apologize and never again use or imply Henley's name in advertising.

In a post on the retailer's website, a rep for the company wrote:

As many of you know, Duluth prides itself on not taking itself too seriously and this culture is often seen in our advertising, which we try and keep fresh, interesting, and funny. Unfortunately, we pushed the advertising envelope too far and distributed an advertisement promoting our line of Henley shirts that invoked American recording artist Don Henley’s name without his permission.
Mr. Henley has long been an advocate of artists’ rights and he brought his objections to our attention. We appreciate and respect what Mr. Henley has meant to music and we now see that our use of his name and an Eagles’ song title in our advertisement was inappropriate. For that we are deeply regretful and we apologize, not just to Mr. Henley, but to anyone else who took offense. We have learned a valuable lesson and thank Mr. Henley for helping us appreciate the importance that he and other artists place in their publicity rights.
We have, at Mr. Henley’s request, also made a monetary payment to be directed to the Walden Woods Project, in recognition of the 25th Anniversary of its founding, to resolve this matter.