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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.
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