The Name, Incorporated

This isn't hypothetical and it isn't outsiders. A.A.'s own records (A.A. Service Manual) describe a lawsuit — "two factions of AA's were competing for the possession of the A.A. name for Intergroup use, the name having been incorporated by one of them." Members. Both sides. In court, over ownership of a name that Tradition says nobody owns, and the fight was possible only because one side had gone and registered it. That is what capture looks like in its purest form: not a hostile outsider, but somebody on the inside converting a shared thing into a held thing, probably to protect it. Once the name is incorporated it has an owner, and an owner can license it, withhold it, and set conditions on its use. Every alcoholic in that area now needs permission for something that was theirs by right the day before. The lesson isn't that those members were bad. It's that the paperwork does the damage regardless of who files it, and it does not undo itself.