I don’t believe that a company like Union Pacific,Conrail,Amtrak and all the other railroad companies could have any interest in stopping model trains manufacturers from using their logos.On the other hand they want to have their say so on who uses it and for what purpose,which is normal since their logos are their property
By licensing the use of their names,these companies would require that a potential user would ask permission to do so,thus having a control on what happens with their logos.Could they favor a model manufacturer this way by selling the rights to the best offer?I believe it’s possible but don’t think they really care about that although it would be the way business goes in general.
It could indeed create havoc in the model railroading industry by raising the costs somewhat but even worse,it would substantially reduce model selection as many road names would simply disappear.Hopefully,this will not happen as I believe that these companies simply want to protect their names and won’t turn this in an other way to increase their profits,they don’t need that.And they don’t need the bad publicity either.
Lets get Athern to paint up a locomotive really great with the UP logo on it. Then if UP wants to use the paint scheme, Athern charges them a licensing fee for using it. Really, we could even help by submitting paint schemes to Athern to use for free. It’ll give UP a taste of their own medicine, or shall we say bitters.[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:D][:p][:p][:p][:p][:p][:p][:D][:D][:D][:D]
Although copyright laws have been around for a long time the Millenium Copyright Act does put a different complexion on things. The RIAA and the entertainment industry are responsible for this and it seems the intent was to enable cheap prosecution of evil wicked downloading pirates, Now anyone can cheaply pursue protection of their intellectual property and of course the corporate lawyers are jumping on to this one big time. Using the spammers creed if they sue enough people they will recover sufficient awards to make it worthwhile even after the lawyers fees and the lawyers are telling them this is free money. As the people getting sued are outside of the company’s customer base they are considered inconsequential.
The Act has been around for about 5 years now and it’s popularity is starting to catch on. The backlash is in the problems with many of the names that everyone thought were public domain that can now be succesfully prosecuted. The French wine industry is making class action noises about the use of their Provincial names being employed outside of the provincial boundaries. Bordeaux style wine will not be cause for exemption any more than UP style locomotive. The Italians and Germans have also made similar noises. There is a little town in England that invented a quite popular and easily produced cheese that caught on quite well. That town could own most of the western world, it’s name…Cheddar.
One interesting thing about the Act is that it doesn’t exclude common carriers. You may never be able to sue the Post Office because you didn’t like your mail but Internet Service Providers have been succesfully prosecuted if found to be aware of and allow unlawful use of their service. There is a little village in Alberta Canada that might be upset if they discovered that UP had ever issued a waybill with the word “Anthracite” capitalised and therefore infringing?
Personally I think the UP colour scheme leaves a lot to be desired so I don’t have any UP logos.
Unfortunately, while you are laughing out loud you also are showing something of a lack of knowledge of copyright law. No insult is intended - this is a complex subject that I learned something about only by having copyrighted material of my own infringed upon.
You file with the feds for a registered copyright. That gives you the right to collect money from an infringer even if there is no monetary damage as a result of the infringement. An unregistered copyright is automatically obtained by simply stating that the material is copyrighted. You can still enfoce the copyright in court, but you can only collect money for any actual damages you can prove. Depending on the situation, the copyright statement doesn’t always even have to be explicit - it may be inferred from the work itself.
A separate point to ponder -
Do the manufacturer’s licenses to use UP’s trademarks extend to the person who puts up a website
No insult taken Brunton, but where are you getting this info on unregistered copyright? I gooled it and found nothing to really support your statement " An unregistered copyright is automatically obtained by simply stating that the material is copyrighted." Could you please post a link to an official site supporting this claim along with how you could unregistered copyright a web page that has other peoples property on it? Thanks…FRED
The section titled “How to Secure Copyright” is the basis of our discussion here, I think.
Exactly how all this applies to a website I’m not sure - I read somewhere that it does apply, but exactly how may still be undecided in the courts.
As far as copyrighting something that contains other’s property - you’ve probably seen something that says something like “…copyright 2001 except those items otherwise copyrighted by their respective owners.” That doesn’t get you off the hook as far as obtaining permission to use their material, but it does plug the legal argument that your copyright is invalid because parts of your content are already copyrighted by others. At least, that how one copyright lawyer explained it to me. His answer might have been an oversimplification to a layman (me).
That’s all I know about it - certainly not too much. That Library of Congress link contains lots of info, though.
Hello.
I am new to this board.
I have herd some shocking news that the model train industry is ending, and the number one reason is that the reailroads want to enforce a law that has been in the books for a long time, wich is to get a fee for using there railroad name, ie, Union Pacific, also there paint color etc. I dont know of this is true, but I have also herd the chairman of UP wants this inforced. I would encourage us as model railroaders to fight thisuntill we win. Whats next, is the auto, truck aircraft etc makers going to do this to??? It all boils down to GREED. If this becomes law, we WILL no longer have a hobby. Other railroads who are joinging this are CSX, BNSF, and Montaina Railroad Link. This can and will raise prices of model train products, and it all adds up to NO HOBBY!!! We need to fight this period.
Greed maybe … although I suspect the costs of running the trademark license program are probably larger than the fees collected, at least for the UP. Unfortunately the law obligates a trademark owner to be aggressive about ALL users so if the UP wants to prevent some trucking firm from pretending to be them, and surely they do, then they have to assert at least token control over the use of that same logo as it appears on a model train. The cost of being tolerant can be a high one, and UP has the oldest logos in the business, surely of considerable value.
So far it has not been the disaster scenario that some painted when the UP first started getting aggressive about their trademarks. That might change if some railroad decides to try to make real money off of this, or wants to utterly prevent models of its trains, of course. It would be an interesting test case but what model firm can afford litigation in today’s climate? Maybe the ACLU could be interested? …
And this trademark issue is not really new, as anyone who has ever wanted an authentic UPS truck for their layout can tell you. I think UPS just says no to everything.
It is worth remembering that when Lionel issued their famous Santa Fe F3s 50+ years ago they did so with the complete cooperation of both EMD and the Santa Fe. So again this is not unprecedented or new.
One issue that I think WILL be very interesting however – a recent ad in model railroader (for a west coast firm the name of which I forget) has a UP car, presumably licensed, where they also include the anti-UP graffiti, so it says “We Will Deliver JOB CUTS”
If UP tries to use its license muscle to prevent an accurate model of an actual freight car then I would be more concerned than I am about the existing situation.
Dave Nelson
If the RR companies are stupid enough to try to pu***his,
They will end up looking like the Big Bully trying to take away little kids train sets ( at least thats how the media will pitch it) and end up with a very bad PR mess.
Manufacturers will just simply stop painting thier products and will only offer undecorated versions of generic locomotives.
Aftermarket detial suppliers will have to offer those special details that differentiate between UP locos and say NS locos.
Us the hobbiest will have to rediscover the lost art of "painting’ and paint our locos ourselves or send them to specialist hobbiest to do for us.
Although the chances of it coming to this are pretty slim. I think they will work out something that will usually pull more $$ out of our pockets.
I personally am very much opposed to UP licencing their logos. Model trains with their logo on are free advertising for them. I myself have also seen cheap plastic battery powered trains lettered for UP. How times change. There were many other cases besides Lionel’s F3’s where railroads paid for toy train companies to produce trains with their logos on. Marx and American Flyer also produced certain models at the request of railroad companies. I hadn’t heard about CSX or BNSF wanting to do this. To me a wise decision for a railroad would be to not licence their name and then even more model trains will be produced for their company instead of their competitors who want to be licenced.
With the mention of UPS I’m reminded of a bad case of what can happen in these situations. In the 80’s there was a small company (can’t remember the name) that was just starting up that manufactured O gauge rolling stock simmilar to Lionel, MTH, K-Line, etc. that wanted to make a UPS boxcar. UPS said no, but they made one anyway. Not many ended up being produced. UPS took them to court and the company ended up closing.
I heard that the Model Railroad Industry Association was trying to stop this licencing from happening. I sincerely hope they’ll succeed. I’ll be rooting for them!
It’s all about corporate greed. Trains aren’t the only plastic kits being “trademarked” like this. Take a look at any 1/25 plastic Chevy kit to see what I mean. Not only does GM copyright the Chevy name, model name, etc… but near the end, they also claim a copyright on the body style! I’m not exactly sure why they do that, since I really doubt that someone is going to scratchbuilt a 1952 Chevy sedan…
Another case comes to mind… remember the hornets’ nest CSX released when they tried to do a similar stunt a few years ago?
As to model trains being free advertising, well, that’s not really true because how many of us wonder who we are going to use to ship our next consignment. I know I do it all the time. As to protest and boycotts, well who and what would you not buy? The UP hauls coal to the powerplant here. Stop using electric? UP has a right to their trademark and its likenesses just like Coke, Pepsi, and Bachmann. I can’t imagine them really thinking that they can make more money off of the small hobby market than they can hauling unit trains of coal. If you owned a business you would feel different. It’s your name and reputation on the line. Say a child gets his finger ran over and cut by a HO model UP train. Could you sue UP for the injury? I am sure it will be tried by todays lawers and the public with their “lottery jackpot lawsuit” mentality. Then the UP will have to defend themselves. That’s free! If I was UP and UPS I’m not sure I wouldn’t want my logos used by others. As to charging a fee, why not? It’s intellectual property that UP owns, it’s not public domain. Can you brew beer and put Budweisers logo on it? How about printing an Encylopedia and putting World Book on it? It’s the law, and a really old one too.
Another cano’snakes for brewery cars, Hershey train sets, etc? Lot’s of that stuff is already being made under trademark licences. That’s why coke boxcars cost more and have a regestered trademark logo on them. That’s why Atherns are the only producers to make John Deere tractors in HO. That’s why Farmalls are refered to as “red Tractors” in the Walthers catalog and have no logos. This isn’t a new thing as the orginal posting would lead one to believe. This is an old issue. UP is being beat up on because they said something about their trademark being illegally poached by train makers. So UP is being made out to be Aholes for doing what 1000s of other companies already do, controlling who uses and makes money off their name and trademark. I’m sure BNSF and CSX feel the same way, but they are not as vocal as UP and are setting back and watching. And another reason it’s been going on so long is the train hobby was basically a small time industury and wasn’t worth the trouble. Then McDonalds and Disney started selling their logos. Now everyone wants to sell their image, including UP. The base question is, would Bachmann sell more trains with an UP logo or with a Bachmann logo painted on it. If they would sell more with UP then they are profiting from UP’s logo. But either way they are in violation of US laws without a licences.
By the way the same license issues for model trains would also apply to decals so in theory a railroad could I guess prevent even that option if they wanted to. We have come a long way (the wrong way) since the Illinois Central used to actually sell IC train sets to the public as a form of advertising! The only railroad I know of that does that in a big way today is the Wisconsin Southern which has an entire company store that sells really nice models of its equipment.
The whole area of trademark law has become very aggressive in just the last few years. I think that the railroads are over reacting myself but I can see their legal point. with one exception – I think they are on shakey grounds in asserting these license rights over fallen flag names and logos that they have acquired. I fail to see the legal harm to the UP if someone wants to sell a Chicago Great Western box car – the CGW ceased to exist in 1968 or so.
Dave Nelson
Well Dave, here’s the deal with decals as I see it. Most decal makers are small time cottage industries. Say you make a UP decal set. Step 1 is the UP would be required to send a cease and desist letter. If you blow that off then they take you to Federal Court. This requires time and money to be spent by UP and if they win they get the profit you made from poaching their trademark. Wow, $75. Spent $100,000. Vary rarely do the courts award attorney fees, and if they did, how will UP collect from you? So I think decals will continue to exsist, they are too easy to make. But if you are Bachmann making locos you might be worth going after.
As to fallen flags, well the new owners purchased them. They got all the assets as well as all the debts. Copyright and trademark laws gives time limits to how long a work is valid. I’m thinking it’s 99 years. So they own it that long. Sorry, but they do.
If this goes on I might look into making decals and custom locos myself. There are always alternatives!
One last note on trademarks and copyrights. You know these require you file them with the Federal Gov and pay them a fee for their service. Just because you know how to write the html code for copyright and post it on you webpages don’t make it so. Most things on the web that claim to be copyrighted aren’t and a case can be made that they are in reality in public domain. They are still protected as intellectual property, but that’s harder to prove. I see lots of websites that say copyrighted that have others intellectual property on them as buttons and/or pictures. Makes me LOL. On another subject, I read where microsoft was sueing a company for all the profits made from the illegal use of their operating system. They had a site licences for 50 and had like 100 computers using it. This invalidated the use licences, so all profits made by the company for like 15 years will most likely be awarded to Microsoft by Federal Court. Then people accuse UP of greed?
Short of sedition no. BTW it’s international law too. It’s a law and point of order used by business and society for hundred of years. It’s in place to protect people and business from creating caos by stealing from each other. Just because it’s a logo or an idea or thought shouldn’t make it any less tangable than actual goods. I submit the only reason people suddenly care is they think it will affect them in their pocketbook. It already does if you want a Coke boxcar, a model John Deere tractor, a model Burger King or Mc Donalds, a model 7-11, or a model UPS truck. These are only seven examples of companies that I have know for sure have already beaten UP to the plate. Why aren’t you complaining about them?