‘Democracy,’ as sung by Offspring

If you are one of the Guns N’ Roses fans who never gave up hope that you would see the long-promised album “Chinese Democracy” in record stores, it looks as if you’ll finally be redeemed -- well, sort of. A Web site posting this week by the lead singer of a rock band assures fans that “Chinese Democracy” is the on the way this summer, but the message came not from GNR’s Axl Rose, but from Dexter Holland, whose band the Offspring is apparently hijacking the title.

“You snooze, you lose,” was the brief explanation offered by Holland on the Offspring’s Web site. “Axl ripped off my braids, so I ripped off his album title.” The album, the Offspring’s seventh, is now being recorded in Los Angeles. The convention is that identical album titles are fair game as long as there’s no trademark or a “secondary meaning” to a title (such as the instant association between the Beatles and their “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”) and no intention to confuse consumers. That explains why Shania Twain, R.E.M. and Peter Gabriel could each release CDs titled “Up” in the past four years.

Still, industry insiders say Rose is already sizing up legal action, though there was no official word from his camp. “Chinese Democracy” has been cited for years as the name of Rose’s comeback album, which has become infamous for its delays, and his band used it as the name of their ill-fated tour last year. There is no scheduled release for the GNR “Democracy” and a spokeswoman with the label, Interscope Records, declined comment Monday on the Offspring matter

-- Geoff Boucher