Infringement
 

Received from Brother Bohn via PM.

Thought it might be of interest. In another PM, he informed me that the GHZ has been notified.

Flattery is a form of honor?

Well, I listened to their music. If a band going to rip off our coat of arms, I would hope that they would at least be good!

These guys SUCK.

Now, if B.B. King, Led Zep, Aerosmith, etc. ever wanted to use our coat of arms, I'd be all for it.

But this whiny emo, poor teenage angst I don't have any friends except for myspace and I like to cut myself to pretend I am hardcore, I will shop at Hot Topic like everyone else and look like everyone else just to be different sh!t, well that's NOT cool to use our coat of arms.

Just my 2 pennies.

I also wanted to add...

Seems like their "fan" base would be generalized as a group of people who...probably wouldn't be accepting of fraternity brothers or sorority sisters. You know the type that cries frats suck, be individual, don't buy your friends, etc.

Imagine how funny it would be if you saw them wearing the bands shirt with the ripped off CoA walking down the street and you alerted them to the fact that what they are wearing is a piece of LXA fraternity?

I am sure that after a "nice" letter from the attorneys that represent LCA, this stolen logo of theirs will be taken down quickly.....

yes, i had a short conversation with the band yesterday. i would post the conversation but i received too many four letter words to bleep, calling our fraternity a handful of lovely phrases. *pm me if you really want to see it* in short, they deny it is our coat of arms and by marketing our copyrighted material attempt to make a profit by using it for advertising and on their merchandise. they are self serving opportunists and i simply have no use for them. it is my understanding that a member from Sigma-Epsilon Zeta, has already opened discussion with the Grand High Alpha regarding this perversion.

i suggest forgetting this small time band for now and stop visiting their page for, as pointed out by their spokesperson, they "love the additional page views" from us 'frat dweebs.'

ZAX

Chase

I was wondering about the laws on using/changing copyrighted material. Talked to a brother here and he said that more than 25% of the material had to be changed. Is there any merit to what he said, or anything similar on how you would have to change a symbol?

Let's see, they took out the cross and cres on the top, changed the wording, and that's it.

They are not protected under any copyright laws from the classes I have already had. It's definately not a parody.

Hell, they even forgot to edit out our badge on the bottom.

Personally, I think maybe a few of our Colorado chapters should pay the band a "visit" at their next show based on what they said in their response. Of course I know that's not the right way to do things, but I can wish can't I?

God, I hate these types of people. The same people that all shop at Hot Topic so they can all be "different" and "express their individuality", but all seem to end up looking exactly the same as each other...kinda funny huh?

From Monty Python's Life of Brian:

Brian: You are all individuals!
Crowd: YES, YES, WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS!
Brian: You are all different!
Crowd: YES, WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT!
Lone Voice: I'm not.
Person next to him: SHH!

Trey, based on my own limited copyright knowledge, I don't believe that they fall under any of the protected uses.

I think it would be infringement because they still have our badge on the design which is a trademark or copyright, whichever, still on it. These guys are a bunch of posers with no sense of creativity. We should encourage people to buy their cd, because the more money they make using our CofA the more we get in court off these pieces of sh*t.

I would really like for the end result to be 1) stop the use of the CoA and 2) all proceeds they collected be donated to charity or the LXA Educational Foundation.

The funny thing is that they think a fraternity is just a bunch of drunk losers with no national organization or anything. They don't realize that we are a multimillion dollar corporation that takes their legal standing VERY seriously.

I'm guessing that they will ignore or have a wise ass answer to the first few letters/emails from our legal team. Then when they are served with an action, they may rethink their position.

Also, how about we email them and let them know about the existence of our message board and politely and kindly ask them to become a part of it to explain how their symbol is different from our CoA?

I know, I know, I won't do it but I would love a mod to!

Apparentley down at the bottom of the page are some similar type issues on infringement, here is a link where the D-9's were suing converse for using just their colors along with a date in a line of tennis shoes.

http://www.blackprwire.com/display-news.asp?id=2436

<crash>
sorry but if they at all deny this they must be idiots.
hmm lets see, lets just erase some of this and this and hope that the greek community wont notice.
dumbbb
<3 nicole

</crash>

Go get 'em
 

Actually, it constiututes theft of our intellectual property. The Coat of Arms is considered to be intellectual property and the use by unathorized individuals constitutes theft.

One possible fix is for the authorized individual, perhaps the Grand High Pi to contact Myspace and explain the circumstances of the theft and ask that Myspace take the site down. That hits the band in the wallet and it will get their attention. Then smack them with a suit alleging theft and infringement and ask for disgorgement of profits. This outfit is undoubtedly uninsured. Do some research - if there are minors in the group name their parents in the suit because mom and dad have insurance.

They will whine and complain and attempt to trash us but so what? We survived the sixties!

Tried sending this to the band:

Hi,

I was just wondering exactly how you chose your symbol for your band? Would it be possible to explain the meaning of it? What sentimental value does it have to you? Can you tell me the significance of the latin phrases, or the 5 stars, or the scale, or the swords, or the lamp, or the light, or the book? How did you come up with the design?

See, what you are using as your band symbol may not have a lot of meaning to you, but for thousands of other people, it has a very deep, significant meaning. Each element represents something we believe in and have worked hard to obtain.

Obviously you are not part of a fraternity, but hopefully this can help you understand where we are coming from. Imagine if you were riding in your car and you heard on the car radio your songs "The Peacemaker" or perhaps "Two Windows". Now imagine while listening to the songs you realized someone had changed the words to the lyrics a little bit. Then once the songs were over, the DJ said "That was THREE Windows and The PeacemakerS from the hot new band Lambda Chi Alpha!"

All the meaning, hard work, dedication to your craft and hours upon hours spent writing and practicing the song and someone comes along, changes it, and then takes credit for it.

How would you feel?

Or maybe I could just order your CD, burn a few hundred copies, slap my own label on it and start selling your music as my own?

Would that be ok?

See, symbols, just like your music, mean something to people. They stand for something and they represent a certain ideal, just like your music.

I'm not going to get into the legal arguments with you, our national headquarters has been contacted by several of our chapters already as well as numerous other brothers. The major greek organizations like Lambda Chi Alpha, Pi Kappa Alpha, SAE, Delta Zeta, etc., take their intellectual property very seriously, and if you do some research you will find that there have been many lawsuits involving violations of that property; from illegal vendors selling t-shirts with the name or symbols, to underground organizations alleging to be a part of the fraternity/sorority.

But I can tell you that when someone steals and misrepresents an item, a symbol or a song that has meaning to another person, that is wrong.

Your songs have meaning to you and your fans, just as our Coat of Arms has meaning to me and my brothers.

As artists, I would hope that you have learned to respect other people's creations and to not claim them as your own.

road trip!!!! j/k j/k! ;)

As soon as someone talks to the higher ups at HQ about this, could you please PM me or post the results?

I move that Brothers Gezelius & Chipperfield pursue these schmucks...do I have a second?

I second that motion...

That evil website is still up as of today.....

Our brothers that are in the film acting industry, unless I am wrong, cannot even wear the letters in films ( if the script calls for it ) unless they have the rights/permission granted by IHQ. Am I correct on this?

I have only seen one film back in the late 1980s that had our letters in it, a made for TV film, where a young man's Grandfather returns to college to get his degree and he gets tutoring help from some Lambda Chi's. Based a true story.

The High Road may be the best way to proceede.

I am sure that the G H Zeta being aware of this, so will IHQ and hopefully it will be taken care of soon.

These if I may use the word TWIT made a faux pas!:D

OOPS!:)

Cool your jets, guys!
 

I agree with Ottor.

The thing that frustrates me is the lack of any respect from the snot nosed punks and a complete sense that they haven't done anything wrong.

It's kind of the same feeling when you're in the bar and someone insults your wife or girlfriend and you just have to stand their and take it knowing that your buddies will be arriving in a few minutes outside the bar.

Guys, let's be realistic here...
 

Brothers,
I'm not exactly sure who on this board is active and who is not, but
I am still active. Heck, I'm a founding father! Point being, I still pay dues
each semester. 70 dollars of that goes to IHQ. I really would like IHQ to
focus on the more pressing issues of our Fraternity than a couple of
punk EMO kids having a good time on Myspace. Paying a lawyer a chunk
of dough to write a C&D letter then perhaps engaging in a bitter law
suit is not spending my hard earned money adequately. I know that Lynn
is a lawyer, and he can do it. But, I'm sure that IHQ has lawyer's they
PAY to do this kind of dirty work.

Let's use the money better. Let's pay the ELCs a little more for their
hard work. Let's use our resources to ensure that EACH chapter has a
High Pi by having the staff help them find one. Let's dedicate ourselves
to ensuring that no chapter has active debt. Let's use some of that money
to update the ancient manuals, fix the archaic website, get ALL the
forms accepted online rather than snail mail. Let's use the money for
the betterment of the experience of the Active Lambda Chi. Let's NOT
use that money fighting a battle with 3 chumps simply to protect the
beliefs of the Alumni that feel stepped on right now. It's not worth it.

Now, am I upset that our Coat of Arms is now the symbol for
some in-today, dead-tomorrow musical sideshow? Yes. But, I don't want
my money used fighting with them about it. They'll never make any money.
They'll never get anywhere, so who cares? Ignore it, it will go away
in this case.

Any Joe in American can get on Ebay, buy our letters, badges, Coat,
t-shirts, Christmas Ornaments, throw rugs, mugs, etc. Are we getting up
in arms about that? No. We don't know what the buyers are doing with that
stuff. We don't even know if that guy is an actual Brother. He's buying
Copyrighted Material right?
----Okay...that's a stretch, but you might vaguely get my point----





Am I going to further defend these views when 25 of you post later
today telling me I am stupid and wrong? NO - so don't bother...
Tell me why I'm right, and I'll be back...:-)




In ZAX,

Brandon Eldridge
Pi-Lambda Zeta 001
St. Louis College of Pharmacy

I Could Be Wrong, But...
 

Brothers,

I believe that Lambda Chi Alpha belongs to an association of fraternities and sororities that collectively pursues these cases. But, I could be wrong....

Yours in ZAX,

Mike Raymond,
Z-U Zeta

PiLambda, I don't think you are stupid or wrong, but you do raise good points.

We simply disagree, that is all.

To me it is very disrespectful what that band is doing and it diminishes the quality of our symbols.

Too WHO?

If this changes anything in your mind then you don't get it. If you think
other Fraternities and Sororities will see this and raise their noses then
you are crazy because they don't know, won't know, and don't care.

So exactly who does this affect?? Nobody...

Symbols are one of the largest factors in both our ritual and general fraternity. To simply have such a nonchalant attitude toward our symbols shows a disrespect to their meaning.

I view our CoA like I do the USA Flag. It is just not some piece of cloth with some stars and stripes. It stands for something. It is the physical embodiment of those ideals.

Our CoA is the physical emodiment of our fraternal ideals. The lamp, light, swords are all part of what we believe in. To just turn your back and not care how those are betrayed is like saying you don't care about our ideals.

Quite frankly I don't care how other fraternities and sororities will view it. If I cared what other frats thought, then I probably would have joined them over LXA. What I do care about is the misrepresentation of what our symbols stand for.

Our CoA doesn't stand for some emo punk kids band. It doesn't just "look cool". It stands for something that [B]I[B] beleive, that [B]I[B] worked hard for.

And when someone or something uses that symbol wrongly or abuses it, it's saying what I believe in doesn't count, doesn't matter and cheapens what we stand for.

I guess I am just one of the older guys where oaths, symbols, promises actually mean something, when a handshake and your word was all you needed for a deal.

You know what, maybe we shouldn't care. Maybe we should let everyone just use our symbols as they wish. Maybe we should open up our ritual to the public, because after all, who does that affect? Maybe we shouldn't keep our ritual equipment in a special place or take care of it. It doesn't mean anything, let's just throw it in a small dusty box. Let's start letting other fraternities use our CoA for their own purposes and maybe charge them to use it?

Easy and steady on.:)

We all feel the same so why bicker amongst ourselves?

How to act...
 

How do I report a copyright violation?

If you believe that your copyright-protected work has been copied and posted on MySpace.com in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide our Copyright Agent with the following information: (i) an electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest; (ii) a description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed; (iii) a description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the Website; (iv) your address, telephone number, and email address; (v) a written statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; (vi) a statement by you that the above information in your notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf. Please contact us here (http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fus...arySubject=29).



I did a little digging...here you guys go if YOU want to act...

Let Indianapolis handle this
 

Guys, lets give Indianapolis a chance to deal with this. I am not an officer or director or authorized agent of Lambda Chi Alpha and could not take action anyway. We have a staff there at HQ and this is the stuff that they need to deal with.

I just put that there to shut people up.

Someone's always quick to say what needs to be done, but
they rarely take the initiative and DO IT!

Actions speak louder than words...Just throwing that out there,
because IHQ isn't going to 'take care of it'...

Like I said previously - bigger fish to fry...

Indy is on it
 

A recent note from Indianapolis indicates that MySpace has already been contacted by the staff - last week! This is now between MySpace and Indy now.

To whom? From where? Who's doing it?

I call hearsay...

PiLambda,

Dont you think you are being a little rash about this......possibly even showing very little faith in our organization. To have our symbol demeaned the way it was is personal disrespect to all of us, and if you dont feel like that, well then thats a shame. There are quite a few people up here, who, if they say something, you can pretty much take it to the bank. Not to mention there are brothers from IHQ who frequent this forum as well. I mean if Tom Earp, Jono Hren, John Gezelius, or Lynn Chipperfield (Sorry if I missed someone who I talk to frequently), say that something is being taken care, then you can guarantee that the situation is being handled by the necessary people.

To say that IHQ has bigger fish to fry is in fact truth. Yes they have to deal with finances and which chapters need to be reprimanded, but when someone takes our symbol and defaces it the way that they did, well I believe that would fall under the part of creed, and I quote 'and strength to fight for its teachings', because our Coat of Arms, is not just some symbol that we display, but our outward visualiization of what our fraternity is about, in essence it sums up most of our teachings. You can take that one symbol and point out almost (if if not everything) that we as men of Lambda Chi Alpha stand for.

So yes, it may seem trivial to some people, but this is OUR symbol, and it should be treated with the utmost respect that it embodies.

Like I said, im not trying to step on anyones toes or anything, but If anyone of these men say that the situation is being handled, then nothing more needs to be said, because it is in fact already being taken care of.

I just wanted to read the freakin' note...calm down...

Im sorry....I didnt mean to bring that off as a personal attack......I guess ive been conversating back and forth with these guys so much that it kinda bothers me to see someone unintentionally disrespect them.......alot of guys up here do quite a bit for our organization, and I respect them tremendously. Again, I just want to apologize for snapping at you.

Sometimes information is passed in a way that sharing it verbatim is not an option. At times information is shared that may not be suitable for public consupmtion. An attorney is required to maintain a client confidence when information is shared.

Fair enough - I just was wondering if it was a post that I missed or
an email that I wasn't included in...ya know...

If it was something that I could read - I would have been curious
to the strength of wording, etc...



BE

I've been watching all this from the sidelines. I am sure everyone wants to know how this will be resolved, unfortunately, this little battle will probably be solved and we will be none the wiser as to what happened. If IHQ gets involved, they will hopefully force them to cease from using the image. At the very worst, they will remove the image from their webpage, but out of spite keep using it. Honestly would any of us have been aware of it had it not been on a website? I would love to see them be forced to pay monetary fines in association to the misuse of the image, but it won't go that far.

One of the alumni from my chapter attempted to contact the band. He was very careful in his choice of words, which is not his usual approach. He refrained from vulgarity. This is the bands final reply to him:
"we didnt CHOOSE your crest, dumbfuck.
we created our own and it happens to be similar to yours.

logic is what ive been tryin to get through to you and all the rest of your buddies and obviously failing at
so let me put it in plain english..

the crest we are using is not yours. it may resemble yours in some ways but it's unique to our cause. you should relay that message .

oh and this one too..
eat shit, frat boys.

your crest looks like OURS .
we didnt come talking shit to you guys.
heed your own advice and dont be childish.end this pointless bullshit."

Needless to say he didn't reply.