Summer of Love (Copyright)? Pick Another Season

If you’re going to San Francisco for the 30th anniversary of the Summer of Love, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair--but also bring your lawyer.

“Summer of Love� is now a registered trademark.

The copyrighting of a name that symbolized the very rejection of commercial values suggests that the times, they are a changin’--oops, that tune is licensed to a Canadian bank.

Well then, it shows that since 1967, there’s been a “Revolution�--no wait, that’s a Nike ad song.

Oh well, they’ll be celebrating anyway as Haight-Ashbury and the hippies, along with their children and grandchildren, mark three decades of Flower Power (assuming, of course, the rights to “Flower Power� aren’t held by some rose importer).

The painful dispute over rights to the name Summer of Love pits two ‘60s music icons against each other--the late Bill Graham’s organization and Chet Helms.

It also pits the idealism of the ‘60s against the American capitalist spirit.

The rights to Summer of Love were snapped up by Bill Graham Presents, the rock promoters. The late Graham packed the Fillmore Auditorium in the ‘60s with acts like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead.

Graham was killed in a 1991 helicopter accident, but his company is still the Bay Area’s dominant concert promoter.

His successors are unapologetic about copyrighting the spirit of the ‘60s. They had no choice, said Jerry Pompili, vice president of operations.

They wanted to use the name for a block party and found Summer of Love had been copyrighted years ago, though the rights had lapsed. So BGP copyrighted Summer of Love to keep it in San Francisco.

One of the first people to run afoul of the copyright was Helms, who served on the informal council in 1967 that he said coined the term. Helms also put on concerts in the era, but his tended to be free parties in the park.

The Summer of Love, Helms said, evolved out of the first great “Be In� in Golden Gate Park at the end of 1966.

In the spirit of the ‘60s, Bill Graham Presents and Helms seem to have worked out an agreement. Pompili has offered to license Summer of Love to Helms for an October concert in Golden Gate Park for a fee of $1.

“And I’ll give him the dollar,� Pompili said. In fact, for a nominal fee, the company will grant a license to anyone in the Bay Area who has traditionally used the name.