fraternity copyrights

[repogolfer]

Now I know the the symbols for most fraternities are copyrighted, and crests, and such things.  And I know you need to have a license to print these and we do not do enough business to warrant becoming a licensed vendor.  But my question is:

We have a fraternity that wants us to print up a special event T-shirt...nothing that would be bad in it...alcohol, sex, drugs.  They have asked us to print them the shirts NOT using the symbols or any of their crest...but just their (NAME) in normal fonts.  My question is should I not even do that ....or can I use their name in a design.  I do not pursue these folks and I just would like to know if I should draw a line in the sand and just tell them that I can not even put their name on their shirts.  Can I legally print (Alpha Kappa) on a shirt in say Arial font....

Like I said ..not enough business to jump through all the hoops and become a licensed vendor..and heck they don't usually give enough time anyways to send off to get approval and such.  I don't mind either way..yes or no...just need to know.

Jon

[ravenmark]

If you are doing frat shirts for a chapter of that Fraternity it seems to me you should be fine with any copyright issues being they are a functioning part of that organization. Would be different if it was some guy off the street. A licence would be geared more towards retail sales not event shirts to the best of my knowledge.

[repogolfer]

If you are doing frat shirts for a chapter of that Fraternity it seems to me you should be fine with any copyright issues being they are a functioning part of that organization. Would be different if it was some guy off the street. A licence would be geared more towards retail sales not event shirts to the best of my knowledge.

Thanks for the reply. 

The info that I have seen online is the members are not authorized to give you permission...its gotta come from higher up and thats why some of them use the services of http://greeklicensing.com/ Now I'm not really interested in using that stuff...I'm just wanting to put the name of their organization in NO specific font on a shirt....along with the event name and date.

I have read some stuff and seems like there is a lot of confusion over this...I just want to cover my butt.

I have even read that if they send you the artwork you should be fine....but some others say that is not the case either.

Jon

[SkylinePrints]

I would be careful to say the least.  There have been more than one company sued over Greek apparel. I've personally known two companies. 

I think the answer lies in your own post.  At the greeklicensing.com, it clearly states "the name..." is protected.  So, even though you are using regular fonts, the "name" itself is protected under copyright according to their site.  If in doubt, I would email them directly to inquire. After all, they would be the ones sueing you if someone on the boards is wrong. 

http://greeklicensing.com/resources/AppFS.pdf

[ScreenFoo]

I think technically we're talking trademark here.  Honestly, it's amazing to me that anyone can act like a combination of a few letters from thousands of years ago is somehow new intellectual property they can defend.

I'd think if you want to pursue something like this, get it in writing from an authorized rep of the local chapter that they indeed have the rights to do this--I know when I worked for a place that was collegiate licensed, we did this type of thing on a regular basis, and the frats and sororities we dealt with had the resources to get these kinds of things approved.  The main frat we printed for (of which several members were employees of ours) even had their own clipart collections...

Of course, as was pointed out, maybe laws are different where you are, maybe the frats have gone totally crazy(er) in the years since I was around this stuff, check with a lawyer, ask your doctor, void where prohibited by law....

[Socalfmf]

it is trademarked....plain and simple....you have to have a license to print it...

that is like saying I can do Harley Davidson as long as i only use a regular font....

sam

[head north]

On the licensing application it says you need to provide a sample of the product proposed to be sold.  If you were printing event shirts for several different fraternities/sororities would you need to send a sample in each time since the "product" is changing?

The application wording seems like it's geared toward retail but I understand the letters/names are trademarked.

[repogolfer]

Thanks for all the replies. 

I'm just going to tell them that they need to go through a licensed dealer.

To much trouble and not worth losing our business over this...... they need us more than we need them. 

Jon

[head north]

Hey Jon -
Could you contract it out through a licensed printer in your area?  Keep the customer, make money, avoid licensing issues (if that does actually avoid the issues).

[repogolfer]

Hey Jon -
Could you contract it out through a licensed printer in your area?  Keep the customer, make money, avoid licensing issues (if that does actually avoid the issues).

Scott,

I'm thinking the main issue with them using the licensed vendor in their city is about the whole submitting it for approval.  As most customers are.....they usually don't plan that far in advance to allow for the approval process.  Thats why I was thinking that if I don't use any of their copyrighted marks...I should be OK.  But Sam made a great point on using their name since it is trademarked.

I'm only going to offer merchandise to them for their events that do not involve any part of their organization in the design at all.  Better safe than sorry.

Jon

[ScreenFoo]

For those on the list--I stand corrected-they've gotten much crazier.  You may want to note, however, that not all frats and sororities are licensed, just like not all colleges are collegiate licensed...

That licensing app is interesting to say the least.   I really get the feeling they really have the best interests of local chapters in mind--doubling their setup charges for any mark.

[T Shirt1]

Greeklicensing dot com has a list of their clients.

[Donnie]

When my daughter was in college she was an Alpha Sigma Alpha. I did a lot of their stuff ie bid week and other activities. Their chapter was not huge by any means and I never gave it a second thought.  It was really more of a pain in the ass because of the low numbers, never more than 50 pieces and usually they wanted 2 colors on 2 sides.  They now use Custom Ink digital prints and their stuff blows.

[ericheartsu]

My sister was part of Alpha Phi Omega, and brought us a lot of business, until we got a cease and desist order from greeklicensing.com. I had no idea that everything was trademarked, and copyrighted.

I was told that we could not print anything for the fraternatites, without paying for the licenses, and submitting samples of every print for approval. i was told a digital mock up would not suffice, and we could not print symbols or names.

So we started turning down thousands of dollars in orders, because, we could work with the organization directly on time sensitive projects.

So, be super careful when printing even just the names of frats, as we were told explicitly that we were not allowed.