(Metal Underground) As previously reported, Middian was slapped with a cease and desist order pertaining to the use of their name via a Wisconsin band called Midian. Although Middian initially announced plans to relinquish their name, they apparently now intend to combat the legal challenge. Here's a statement from the group: "Middian may not be dead after all. As many of you know, Middian received a cease and desist demand in October from Midian of Milwaukee LLC. This demand required Middian to stop using our name completely, stop selling our album, and further demanded that all of our recorded CDs and albums be destroyed. Middian was served a cease and desist by a band that has never played outside of Wisconsin, hasn't put out a single record, or had a steady line-up in the last 7 years. They hadn't even updated their website since year 2000, as of a few weeks ago. We played Milwaukee in May, and no one there even mentioned a local band Midian of one 'd.' Nor did one of their 'fans' come to the show.
"Prior to this demand, we had never heard of them. Upon further research into the group, we discovered they had not used their name or trademark in years or even played outside of Wisconsin, ever. Our initial response was that our bands could peacefully co-exist. Especially since we learned that our usage combined with their non-usage entitled us to the name, rendering their trademark useless. But we felt it would be wasting everyone's time and money to send the issue to litigation. Besides, before the name Middian was chosen, a careful online search was done, proving that no other active unit had the same spelling.
"Instead of responding or agreeing to our offer of co-existence, they filed a federal suit against the three of us individually, our label (Metal Blade, who dropped us because of the suit), our booking agent (Nanotear Booking), and an online merchandiser we had never even heard of until we saw the complaint. - more on this story
