help expanding locals....

[deltajas]

Hey there
my sorority would like to expand, but I have an important question....How does one go about copyrighting their letters??? Any info will help
thanks a lot
Love and sisterhood

[AOX81]

You cannot copyright letters, sorry.

[deltajas]

so how do you stop one group from starting with your letters?? How do nationals do this?

[Greekgrrl]

Actually I believe most of the national groups HAVE copyrighted the letters in their specific combinations.

That's why they have the licensing approval on some vendors and not others -- the approved vendors have permission to use the letters, crest, etc. There's a really good essay on the national Sigma Chi website about this issue.

Members of the groups, obviously, are granted use of the letters so it's ok for them to go get stitched letters and what have you.

You'd have to talk to a copyright lawyer about getting your letters assigned to you. I'm pretty sure you have to be a legal entity first (i.e. incorporated) but I could just be making that up.

Hope that helps

Greekgrrl

[FuzzieAlum]

One difficulty you might run into is if any other local anywhere already has that name. Say you're Mu Phi Nu, a sorority in Maine, and there's a Mu Phi Nu fraternity in California that's older than you ... you can't prevent them from using their name, and they could challenge your copyright. You have to do some research and make sure your name is unique.

Although I'm not sure how KA Order and KA Society handle that particular issue.

[Denise_DPhiE]

You cannot copyright the letters - period. What the national groups have are copyrights on things like images of the crest etc. (let us not go down the road about badges!).

For example, there was once a Delta Zeta Sorority chapter at St. John's University (NY). They disafilliated from DZ national at some point and many years later DZ national found out they still were using the ritual and loosely operating off of DZ history and systems. DZ could not force them to change their letters - the letters themselves could not be trademarked. Eventually, DZ offered to colonize them and hope to bring them back into the sisterhood. They were never chartered and to my knowledge, DZ national got their ritual book back.

Another good example is a local sorority called Alpha Epsilon Pi. Many years ago, there was a pin for this group at an estate jeweler. I contact AEPi fraternity (men) and they told me this was a local sorority that existed since like 1902 at Moravian College and since they had no plans to expand nationally, they just let them be - they peacefully coexisted for many (like 80) years. According to Moravian's webiste, this local became a chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha in the past 10 years or so.

There is more to the meaning of a local than just the letters. The symbols, the motto and purpose - all part of who you are!

My 2 pennies,
Denise

[essenceofomega]

hello,
just wanted to put my two cents in. delta sigma chi has its name and copy written, check it out.



http://www.deltasigmachi.cc