plagiarism is punk rock, NOT!

Today we got an email from one of the punk labels we looked up upon, BYO (Better Youth Organization) records. We did some mistakes and they notify us. This is our email of apology and also the email from them. We expose these emails for the sole purpose of lesson learned for us and our friends to take notes.

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Nervhous Records!

Came across this while looking online: http://www.myspace.com/punkrockbowlingtournament

We are BYO records, you may know us because you stole our event, including our artwork, to stage your own copycat bowling tournament!?! Do you think this is ok? It is not ok to steal other people's idea's, art, music or anything else. PLEASE STOP IT NOW! DO NOT USE ANYTHING FROM BYO without express written permission. That permission, now that you have stolen from us, will not be granted easily. We have been doing this for many, many years and while things may be different in your community, culture, country, in the punk rock world that we come from, we do not steal or use other people's work without asking.

Do not take this lightly. I see you are doing a show with NO USE FOR A NAME. They are friends of ours, as are most of the punk bands around the world. Do you think they would like to know that you steal other people's work? Do you think this would help them decide if they want to travel to your country to work with people who cannot be trusted!? You can be sure they will not.

Take some advice from someone that has been doing this for over 30 years, if you want to run a punk rock label/band/zine/promoter, whatever, you better learn to be honest and trustworthy in this community or no one will work with you.

I hope you have some sort of explanation for this theft!

I'm waiting to hear it!

Shawn Stern

shawn@byorecords.com

President

BYO Records

(310) 295-4656

http://www.byorecords.com/

http://www.letthemknowthemovie.com/

Let Them Know:

The Story Of Youth Brigade and BYO Records

BYO 25 Year Anniversary Box Set

Out Sept. 2009 (Finally)

Full Length Documentary Dvd

2 LP's Featuring Exclusive Tracks From All Your Favorite Punk Bands

100 Page Hardcover Coffee Table Book

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Hi Shawn, it's a shock to get an email from BYO! Unfortunately it's a negative one. Anyway, we would like to apologize for using the name and the artwork from BYO's annual punk rock bowling. Actually what we did was just a very small gathering of friends who are active in the label and honestly, it was less than 20 persons just went for bowling. It was really nothing big as what you guys did.

So we just simply took the name, obviously because there's no other name we think is suitable, and we thought it was a general name for an event, plus the fact that we are all punks too :) And to tell you the truth, the event was just a one-off thing, not annually or as frequently as BYO did. RM20 fee for each participants were to pay the rental of bowling alleys for each person to bowl.

About the flyers, the intention was just to make the bowling/gathering more exciting and just for fun, nothing more than that. We have to let you know that we DID NOT make any single money out of that, it was just an unofficial gathering. Our friend who did the design who used your artwork is just a beginner in photoshop and image editing and we actually didn't know that the artwork was stolen from BYO. We should have checked first.

We all have very much respects for BYO for the struggles you people went through, the effort you guys did for the hc/punk scene worldwide, the always awesome records you guys put out and not to forget your band YOUTH BRIGADE. You all are very inspiring to us and we hope you won't stop being awesome.

Please accept our sincere apologies, and we promise and guarantee you that this sorts of thing will never happen again, at least not from us.

Nizang
founder
nervhous records
http://nervhousrecords.blogspot.com

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Hi Nizang,

Ok, don't sweat it, everyone makes mistakes. Just, in the future, even for something that's just for friends, if you wanna use someone else's idea and then you're gonna put it up on the web, always best to drop an e-mail and ask if it's ok. That way you avoid something like this happening. Anyhow, good luck with everything you are doing. Maybe we'll make it over there next year. We are probably taking a surf trip end of May to Indonesia, so who knows, we may do some shows in Asia.

Thanks,

Shawn