Copyright Filter: Can I use the greek letters representing fraternities and sororities?

October 7, 2007 8:41 AM

Can I print the greek letters representing particular fraternities and sororities on items without permission from these organisations?

If I wanted to print Tau Epsilon Phi or Sigma Kappa t-shirts, or make electronic greeting cards using just the greek letters representing these houses, would that be legal?

As an example, Delta Sigma Phi's website states:

The emblems and insignia of Delta Sigma Phi represent our Fraternity in the eyes of all members and should be treated with dignity and respect. By law, the national Fraternity has exclusive right to reproduce the coat-of-arms and other insignia as registered trademarks of Delta Sigma Phi.

This leads me to believe that I can do anything I want with the letters Delta, Sigma, and Phi without breeching copyright or trademark as long as I don't reproduce associated symbols like crests, etc.

Is that correct? Or do I need permission from each national to stick their letters on stuff?

posted by DarlingBri to law & government (11 comments total)

If your intention is to create products targeted at members of said fraternities, then I would imagine that, yes, you need to get permission. At that point, your use of the greek symbols could be construed as a use of an organization's logo or name.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:47 AM on October 7, 2007

IANAL, but it seems to me that Greek letters are public domain in the same way that English letters are.

That is, you can use the letters c, e, k, and o freely, but if you arrange them into "Coke" and sell T-shirts, there's a pretty good chance the company can shut you down.

You need permission to use the "Coke" trademark, so I very strongly suspect you'd also need it for "Delta Sigma Phi".
posted by Malor at 8:55 AM on October 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

My old fraternity uses these guys: http://www.greeklicensing.com/ for merchandise licensing. You might take a look at what they have to say about (and what they charge for) licensing.

Now obviously, they will want you to get licensed whether it is strictly necessary or not, but at least it will give you an idea of what you are up against.
posted by NormieP at 9:06 AM on October 7, 2007

This article gives the impression that these groups are pretty assertive regarding their IP rights.
posted by exogenous at 9:11 AM on October 7, 2007

Trademark protection is very circumscribed. They don't have as many rights as you seem to think they do. This isn't like copyright.

On the other hand, the golden rule still applies: he who has the gold makes the rules. They've got more money for lawyers than you probably do.

You can use the combination of greek characters, but you can't put them on a product to sell. That's what it comes down to.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:24 AM on October 7, 2007

Think of it this way.

The fraternities have guys who graduated from law school. Hundreds of them, in fact.

Do you?
posted by dhartung at 9:57 AM on October 7, 2007

Sort of sucky, but interesting. Thanks.

I'm now curious on the apparent split in retail approaches. While some sites seem to have signed up to pay licensing fees to be able to explicitly state "we sell Chi Omega hoodies" or whatever, others seem to take an alternative approach I can only assume is not licensed: to say they make Greek hoodies and just let you pick your letters on checkout.

Does approach #2 sound legal, or should they still be licensed?
posted by DarlingBri at 10:00 AM on October 7, 2007

Approach 2 is probably legal, because the sellers are not putting forth products as if they were provided by a particular source (in this case, Chi Omega). They are merely allowing their customers to design their own hoodies. TM is meant mostly to protect customers from false claims of origin; you might walk into a store and buy a Chi O hoodie thinking it was produced/approved/licensed by the national sorority, but you wouldn't ask the embroidery shop to put the two Greek letters on your shirt and then somehow think that the national organization had something to do with it.
posted by katemonster at 10:11 AM on October 7, 2007

Technically, it is illegal.
If you use totally different letter font and not mention Greek organization in your ad..., that may be passible and there is a good chance the organization would not even notice....

BUT... what would be the point? your product will be just a bad copy of official stuff. (unless that is o.k. by you)

If you sell only few a month..., no one would care. If you sell hundreds or more.. than.. I am SURE some one in the organization or the licensed merchants who sell similar product will contact you to stop.

If you happen to sell thousands of these stuff.. THERE WILL be monetary consquences...

so If you think your product will sell well, contact them and get a license.... if it is going to a little side thing.... go ahead...
posted by curiousleo at 10:29 AM on October 7, 2007

Another thing to consider is that if you're trying to make money at this, your customers are going to be people with affiliations to that fraternity/sorority. They're probably going to take the time and effort to verify that when they buy a hoody some of the money goes back to their old organization.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:25 PM on October 7, 2007

Excellent dialogue. There is a long history here regarding Greek trademarks. The truth is the Greek letters, when used in combination that reference a Greek organization (business), are protected and do require approval by the trademark owner. See Orders on Cross-Motion on Summary Judgment(http://www.greeklicensing.com/resources/T_SummaryJudg.pdf) for a full legal decision supporting this. Also note that members of an organization do not have the right to authorize commercial trademark use. So, be sure not to rely upon a disclaimer that you are operating under "apparent authority." The costs of federal trademark infringement cases are expensive - so be sure to do the research and know what you are doing beforehand.
posted by GreekLicensing at 10:10 AM on October 10, 2007