Amy Winehouse Foundation name 'stolen' 5

Governance | Kirsty Weakley | 23 Aug 2011

Donations made to Mitch Winehouse for the Amy Winehouse Foundation have had to be returned as somebody else had already registered the name.

“Instead of allocating funding I am having to send cheques back because we don’t have a bank account in that name,” he wrote on Twitter, hitting out at the person who "stole our foundation name".

The father of the late singer announced his intention to set up a foundation in Amy’s name at her funeral last month and has so far met with the Home Office and will meet with the heath minister in September.

Mitch Winehouse advised that Martin McCann registered the domain name and paid £160 to register the name with Companies House, later tried to sell it back to him. Winehouse used Twitter to tell followers that he had lawyers looking into the situation, and late last night he announced via Twitter that the name was now in his posession. An official announcement is to be made later today.

McCann told the Sun newspaper he had not done anything wrong, and said: “Anybody could have. It only takes the click of a mouse. I'm not ashamed or embarrassed. Detach yourself from emotions and think business.”

Meanwhile a preview clip of a song Amy recorded with Tony Bennett before her death has emerged on Youtube. When the song is released as a single the profits will be donated to the Foundation.

Place a comment

Nigel Edward-Few
CEO
28 Aug 2011

People like McCann who buy up website names are, to put it politely, a pain in the neck. I can't think of a polite way to describe McCann and people like him.

I know that I will not be alone in having tried to buy a number of website names for a charity that I wanted to set up only to discover that the names had been registered by people who have no intention of using them.

[Reply]

Rest Assured
23 Aug 2011

Maybe Mr Winehouse should have registered a name first before hastily advertising to the world the intended name of the foundation, it certainly would have saved this shambles.

That's a thought, has anyone registered the Pete Doherty Foundation yet?...

[Reply]

Robert
23 Aug 2011

Mr Winehouse could have encouraged Amy's fans to support one or more of the many existing substance abuse charities, instead of unnecessarily duplicating all the set-up and administration costs associated with creating yet another one?

[Reply]

David Bennett
Head of Strategic Partnerships
Evangelical Alliance
23 Aug 2011

"Its just business" is the unacceptable face of the charity world. We've seen what the corporate greed of financial institutions and big business has done to our economy, and it has no place in charitable fundraising. McCann should hang his head in shame in trying to make a quick buck out of the money people freely give to support such a good cause. The more that goes to him, the less for those that really need it. Obviously ethics don't exist for people like McCann.

[Reply]

Ryan Phillips
23 Aug 2011

I never knew that you had to have a website before you could open a bank account! Just because someone had registered the web domain wouldn't have stopped Mitch Winehouse opening a bank account in the same name - having a web address doesn't give anyone the exclusive right to that name...

[Reply]

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.