Copyright VS. Trademark?

[lotusdove]

I coordinate community events for film & animation. I recently created an unusual film-theme party - it has a logo, marketing materials, a pretty good event "hook", and mailing list of locals that are eager to attend more of these events.

I'm a little annoyed because a company in another state saw my party advertised online and held the SAME EXACT kind of party - they took my flyer, photoshopped their logo over mine, and changed the location and date! When I contacted them to stop, they said "they talked to the venue and they said it would probably be fine." I said, "It is certainly not 'fine' - I am the creator of this franchise, so the 'permission' was from someone with no authority." They responded with "You can't copyright party ideas, but to be fair, since you inspired us, you can send us some of your marketing materials so we can advertise your other products for you so you can help build your organization's mailing list."

While I appreciate the offer to sell my other product to folks at that party
1.) I'm pretty insulted. Someone just ripped off my artwork, my marketing copy & strategies and is trying to make me feel like they did me a favor.
2.) I would have a tough time proving that they are distributing my flyers/information.

Once it got to a certain size, I was planning on franchising this party/festival - charging venues a small fee to license the name or take a percentage of the bar, in exchange for my promotion services to my robust mailing list. But how can I stop bars or jerk-faces from just taking the idea and not giving me a dime?

It's not worth suing over because we're probably talking about peanuts here - again, I run charitable community events.

Even worse, they are now asking me to contact MY followers on Facebook/Twitter to advertise "their" future parties because "I could use the exposure to market to people in another state and sell my other products to them."

That just rubs me the wrong way.

If I trademarked the name, could I issue a cease and decist, or do I have enough leverage with my copyright/the fact that I held these types of parties first.

How can I scare people to keep them from stealing from me? I have other franchised theme party ideas, but I'm not telling ANYONE until I figure this out. I guess this is the whole "you can can't register banana bread but you claim your own receipe" situation.

[bcnu]

Depending upon your circumstances you may already have valuable trademark rights and copyrights that have been infringed. Look into the trademark coverage of "look and feel" of a venue, and the "trade dress" of your party that reaches the level of being recognizable as your creation.

If you were the first, you own the rights. Start filing registrations, so they don't "beat you" to the punch. Calculate a realistic licensing fee for your "franchise" (say, $25,000 for the look and feel, plus ten percent of any gate) and have an attorney draft a cover letter offering them the license.