Who Owns Your Badge?

[HotDamnImAPhiMu]

I bet the answer is "no," unless your ritual robes have "Kappa Inc." on them. and the little "r" with a circle around it.

[LPIDelta]

Originally posted by wptw
Owning the trademark on the badge design protects the group against unauthorized use and unauthorized copies, but it does not have any impact on the ownership of legitimately produced badges showing up on ebay.

Let's hear the convention resolution you wrote.

wptw

Agreed! The resolution presented recognized that the sorority is the owner of the marks and clearly stated that the sorority was the only authorized seller of the badge, and expressly discouraged members from selling badges on eBay or by other means. I know that its not an end all solution, but if we can educate our members on the best disposition of their badges, then I hope it works. The resolution came about because many of our members were writing the HQ concerned about the sale of badges on eBay.

The resolution when presented had some of the wording amended so I do not have the version that actually passed.

I know there are other problems greater than this to focus on but I have seen some historic pieces from my sorority sold to people that have no idea the meaning the letters or symbols hold. I guess that affects me and I don't want to see my org lose the right to our letters (even though they are already shared by a national foreign service fraternity/sorority.) And yes, protecting marks is also a financial consideration--one that my org cannot afford to overlook. I appreciate that what some have said though--and I have a new perspective on this issue.

[ebayfan]

Wow - there are more broken leases on pins than on apartments in NYC in 100 years! Each day since so many pins end up on ebay!

[WCUgirl]

Originally posted by ebayfan
Wow - there are more broken leases on pins than on apartments in NYC in 100 years! Each day since so many pins end up on ebay!

Wow - these are the kinds of statements that help people open their minds and see your side of the argument!

[preciousjeni]

Didn't want to read this all the way through...sorry! But, I wanted to mention a little piece of knowledge that I have knocking around in the old brain.

I've been working A LOT with the estates of both my grandmother and my great aunt. This is my first experience with estates but has been a vivid one and I must say...

The best thing for a family to do, honestly, is to bury the property with the member. While it is not unreasonable to bequeath a badge to another member, a chapter or return it to the national org, there's a lot of legal mess that ensues over even the tiniest thing. Avoid the mess, bury the badge!

[Denise_DPhiE]

Originally posted by ISUKappa
Our fraternity had their lawyer look through our Constitution, ByLaws, Standing Rules and Policies for any legal claim we could have on our badges. And they basically said, there is none. Like wptw said, possession is 9/10s of the law, a court is going to favor the person in possession of the badge, whether it's the person it was originally issued to or not.

So the best way to combat this is to educate your members. Have them put a clause in their will; tell their family what they want done; have it written where they keep their badge; teach them on the proper ways to ensure their badge doesn't end up where it doesn't belong.

Bumping this thread b/c it came up elsewhere and ISUKappa is right on the $$$$$.. Her response is timeless.

Denise

[HotDamnImAPhiMu]

I don't see a problem with owning/collecting badges.

If it's not yours, you probably don't understand it. If you've somehow gotten into posession of a ritual book that explains it, you still don't understand it.

I'd rather someone who was a member of that GLO have posession of it, but nobody put me in charge.

I especially don't see the problem with me owning/collecting my own badge. I know and understand the meaning behind it. It has special meaning and beauty to me.

And from a purely vain point of view, I could easily see having been initiated with mom's gold Alpha Phi pin and then getting my own white gold badge later. What, am I going to get rid of mom's badge just because I don't wear yellow gold?

[Denise_DPhiE]

Originally posted by Erik P Conard
Let's see, I do know that Tom Earp collects badges; he likely has
yours. He was a-lookin' for a Delta Psi one, that great big hunk
of Union metal. And he was a lookin' for a TNE one, but I gave
mine to a TKE badge collector in Louisiana and a dangle key to
a Phi Delt pal in Kansas.
I think Tom is hoarding the badges; he told me the other day he
got a badge from the hock shop which'd belonged to an English
teacher who was unemployed.
I think he is gonna display them at the new Lambda Chi house he
got for the Pitt State zeta. Tom deserves a lot of credit and a hearty applause for his LOYALTY and DEDICATION to his fraternity
How many of you love your outfit as much? Tom, ya did good and
I predict LXA a top spot soon there...
He may not own 'em all yet, but he's a-workin' on it.

You drinkin' what Tom is usually drinkin'? I was talking about badge disposition and care after you are gone from this world. ISUKappa and others were talking about it in another thread and I found this thread and bumped it up. This is not a pin collectors thread.

Denise

[AlphaFrog]

Originally posted by HotDamnImAPhiMu
I don't see a problem with owning/collecting badges.

If it's not yours, you probably don't understand it. If you've somehow gotten into posession of a ritual book that explains it, you still don't understand it.

I'd rather someone who was a member of that GLO have posession of it, but nobody put me in charge.

I especially don't see the problem with me owning/collecting my own badge. I know and understand the meaning behind it. It has special meaning and beauty to me.

And from a purely vain point of view, I could easily see having been initiated with mom's gold Alpha Phi pin and then getting my own white gold badge later. What, am I going to get rid of mom's badge just because I don't wear yellow gold?

I don't think anyone is questioning owning multiple of your own badge. One of our ASA advisors upgraded her badge and they told her to keep her old one unless she wanted to donate it to archives. Plus, I'm sure most groups would rather see one sister with a thousand badges, then a non-member with a badge.

The issue at hand is if you think it's OK to have badges from other groups.

I would prefer others not to have ASA badges, but since they don't know what it means, it's just an odd shaped diamond to them.

[Optimist Prime]

I don't think there is any thing intriniclly wrong with having other org.s badges. I have a badge of now defunct order of Kappa Phi from i think colgate or lafayette or something that ends with an 'e' but they became a chapter of Beta Kappa, which later merged with Theta Chi. If I had some one's badge I would mail it back to their HQ if they had one. But they don't have one. If I meet a brother from that chapter, I'd give it to him, b/c it is part of his chapter's and alma mater's history.

As for the Crossed Swords and Rattlesnake....if you don't know what it means, why wear it? Or even have it. I know that badges are pretty but there is a badge poster some where that has all of them so you could just look at that if it was an asthetic thing.

[HotDamnImAPhiMu]

Rattlesnake is cool though.

[Optimist Prime]

Originally posted by HotDamnImAPhiMu
Rattlesnake is cool though.

[Erik P Conard]

golly, don't know where to put this, but at any rate, I found an old
box in the garage which had about 20 GLO pins and over 30 ritual
books. I had not looked at them for years, Phi Alpha, ZAX, kai,
and TKPhi and all that. Most of 'em smack of the Fellowcraft degree of the Masons.
One way to induce narcolepsy is to sentence one to read all them
things.

[wptw]

Man, I'm just killing myself for missing that ritual collector thread. Stupid Valentine's Day!

You know, I would love to put myself up on a pedestal and say I'm well above the temptation to publicly smack someone in the face with things I may know about their ritual. But with SAETEX my fingers were itching. Actually itching! But I have tremendous respect for SAE, and of course my conscience wins out and I can't do it. I guess that's the lesson of many rituals - to recognize that we're imperfect people and even if we don't manage to live up to our high ideals today, we'll try again tomorrow.

(Oh, and SAETEX, if you want to PM or email me, I'll be happy to give you privately the meaning of Phi Alpha - greek spelling, english translation, pronunciation, anything you want. Of course, first you'll have to prove you're a member yourself, but that should be easy for one so omniscient about all things SAE. Also, I might suggest you yourself spend some time thinking about Phi Alpha because you're not quite there yet).

[sigh] Ahhhhh, that feels better.

Oh, and so this post is on topic: You own your badge. Except for the ones that I own.

wptw

[IvySpice]

To follow up on a legitimate question from the now-closed thread:

Copyrights are based on public disclosure of the intellectual property you claim as yours. You cannot claim government protection of intellectual property without revealing its contents, at a minimum, to the government. And we know that no group would file its ritual with any government agency. Therefore, it's safe to say that copyright law would not cover any instance of an illicit published ritual.

Hypothetically, groups could oblige their members to sign contracts (in addition to swearing oaths) promising to keep the ritual secret. This would be no different than the gag-rule contracts that are used when lawsuits settle, etc. If the member then revealed any secrets publicly, the member could be sued for breach of contract. But I don't think many groups do this, and at any rate, the penalties for breach of a non-economic contract like that could not be high, because the group probably could not show that it suffered a financial loss as a result of the disclosure.

On top of all this, even if the ritual WERE copyrighted, it is considered fair use to publish excerpts of someone else's copyrighted work within a larger article analyzing the work. In other words, if the Washington Post got ahold of a copyrighted ritual, it would be legal for it to publish an article that stated, "The ritual takes about 45 minutes to recite...Phi Alpha means Friendship Eternal...pledges have to kneel" etc.

So I wouldn't rely on using the law to keep your secrets private. You have to manage privacy issues on your own.