I have been somewhat hit a miss around here the past few months, so maybe this has been covered and I just missed it. If so, someone please tell me. Does this look bad to anyone but me. UP has been raising this big legal stink over trademark protection which has resulted in an increased cost for model locomotives, etc. bearing UP logos and paint schemes. When challenged in court a judge ruled that this was withing UP’s right, but that they could not use the same argument over “fallen flag” road paint schemes since these paint schemes/logos were not in use by UP any more. Only a short time later UP announces that new ACE locomotives will be painted in these “Heritage” schemes representing older “fallen flag” roads. When I saw the unveiling of the MoPac, WP, and SP units my immediate thought was, “Now they can charge a premium on model equiment using these road logos as well.” [oX)][?] Has anyone else considered this? Are these single locomotive paint schemes an attempt by UP to profit on model equipment and momorabelia from roads they have acquired over the years? [?] I look forward to hearing your opinions.
As I understand it, UP have been collecting payments on locos and cars in “fallen flag” schemes since they started this bizarre method of augmenting their profits. They don’t need a few repaints to do this - they own all the rights to these roadnames anyway.
I just don’t see the revenue stream from modeling as being that big. It almost seems like they would break even with the paint jobs for the heritage engines and the legal fees for fighting MTH and other manufacturers. I believe UP is within their rights for logo protection but it seems like a big waste of time (and money) for UP.
It’s possible, though UP of course has never said that directly. I’m not a lawyer or anything but I think in any case involving a copyright infringement one of the things that would be looked at is whether or not the copyrighted item is actually in use by the party claiming they are being wronged.
What nobody is saying here is that licensing is not aimed at just the model railroad market, though to us modelers it is the most visible. There are tons of other stuff that they would collect from, ie: clothing, coffee mugs, key chains, etc., etc. The list is virtually endless, not just model trains.
I am not exactly a big Up fan, but I have to believe their sole motive for the fees is to protect their images. The amount of money made on fees has to be so minor that there could no other reason for it.
I have heard from few folks, in the model and prototype train world about how it all got started.
Years ago a UP exec saw a picture of UP enigne doctored up in a picture floating around the internet that said “Utterly Pathetic”. Appearantly, it irked him enough to start a program to make sure stuff never happened again. Hence the fees were born. From what I gather quite a few were going around and he got fed up with it.
While I have no idea if its true, and the idea of UP exec guy makeing poeple use there time on a project sounds a little silly… But I have to think that UP mang. has done a lot sillier things.
I thought I read in a similar discussion to this several months ago that legally a trademark only lasts a certain amount of time. I think perhaps the deadline is starting to approach on some of the lines UP took over. If this is correct the Heritage locomotives start the clock over on the trademark. Hopefully with legal knowledge of this can chime in.
I think it would have cost UP more to come up the heritage schemes and paint those locos than what they would made in license fees (less their legal expenses).
I believe that a few UP execs are on this forum right now. I can hear them snickering. I guess like all business people, they have nothing better to do but rip off us nice, wholesome, gosh-darned salt-o-the-earth modelers who just want to…BLAH, BLAHHHH, BLAAAAAHHHHH…
I think it goes deeper than that. It is my understanding that there is a group of congressmen that never had model trains as children and thus had become very jealous of those that had. They banded together and formed the Two Rail Independent Congressional Committee (TRICC) and pledged themselves to eliminating model railroading.
The were originally dealt a severe blow when the horn-hook coupler became the defacto standard of HO couplers thus stopping incompatability problems inherant with the numerous couplers that were around in the 50’s. Powerless to do anything about that, they began focusing on anything that would serve to unite model railroaders. Look what happened to Rapido for being daring enough to offer up its N-scale coupler to the industry. Seeing NMRA DCC standards has been a boost to the hobby, TRICC set up MTH as a way to disrupt DCC and sound harmony.
TRICC then worked within the system to further disrupt the hobby. TRICC backing was key to the eased trade restrictions with China, and was the force behind RTR models being imported from China. (It is no coincidence that Washington DC is close to Baltimore - the former HQ of Life Like). One only has to look at the threads here about RTR to see the wedge this has driven into the hobby. TRICC was somewhat taken aback when the hobby seemed to like Life Like’s new image and its owners were then bullied to sell out to Walthers, which as we know will spell doom to that line. Same with the Athearn/Horizon deal.
In exchange for critical votes on Defense bills, TRICC manuevered Congress to pass modifications to the copyright and trademark laws. The goal was to get the railroads themselves to help destroy the hobby. Some railroads refused to play - and met their doom. How else can one explain the PRR/NYC merger which was doomed from the start? Knowing that Santa Fe was model railroading friendly (note - SF paid Lionel to use the warbonnet on its F units), TRICC blocked the SP/SF merger and forced SP to
How about somebody, anybody finding out what the annual royalty payment to UP is from model manufacturers. Some people say it’s a money making scheme, some say it’s a pittance. Well, which is it. It’s kind of hard to have a fact based discussion without any of the facts. Do you think we could end this debate about Greedy Ol’ Union Pacific once and for all. I’ll take a stab at finding some info. Anyone else willing to dig a little?
Guys, please do the research. Overall, the impact on most model HO and N scale locomotives wearing UP logos would average from between $2.00 to $5.00 with the higher amount being for items in the $250+ range, like BLI units.
If you see a sticker price for a typical plastic UP unit that is $10 higher thanother “non UP” items the that is “courtesy” of the model manufacturer, distributor, or LHS “jacking up” or “profit padding” the price tag as well.
As for Union Pacific repainting locomotives so that they can justify trademarking UP’s fallen flags railroad schemes…of course! They’re not hiding it either. What’s so sinister about it?
I’m hoping that eventually CSX decides to do this and locomotives painted in ACL, L&N, and Pennsylvania start popping up.
To add to Antonio’s comments, I really like what UP is doing with the Heritage program, regardless of the motive. For the longest time I heard folks commenting on wanting to see the fallen flag paint back, but now that it is here, there is complaining.
Just as I thought, on a quick read-through of the form 10-K for 2004, not one single mention of revenue due to licensing or royalties. It’s a non-issue. So how’s about we drop the bashing unless you can cite how UP is using this as anything other than protection of their trademarks. If anything, there is probably just as much blame to be put on the model manufacturers and distributers for the price increase than any railroad.
Yeah, it would be really cool to see some Brunswick green units roaming the tracks again. Would also love to see a couple of CSX units in the CNJ Red Baron scheme. Way cool.
If the UP wanted to get really nasty about this, they could be hitting up non-profit organizations, such as museums, but they aren’t. When I was active at the Texas Transportation Museum in San Antonio, we recieved a letter saying it was alright for non profits, such as ourselves, to use their trademarked images without paying.
I think it goes deeper than that. It is my understanding that there is a group of congressmen that never had model trains as children and thus had become very jealous of those that had. They banded together and formed the Two Rail Independent Congressional Committee (TRICC) and pledged themselves to eliminating model railroading.
The were originally dealt a severe blow when the horn-hook coupler became the defacto standard of HO couplers thus stopping incompatability problems inherant with the numerous couplers that were around in the 50’s. Powerless to do anything about that, they began focusing on anything that would serve to unite model railroaders. Look what happened to Rapido for being daring enough to offer up its N-scale coupler to the industry. Seeing NMRA DCC standards has been a boost to the hobby, TRICC set up MTH as a way to disrupt DCC and sound harmony.
TRICC then worked within the system to further disrupt the hobby. TRICC backing was key to the eased trade restrictions with China, and was the force behind RTR models being imported from China. (It is no coincidence that Washington DC is close to Baltimore - the former HQ of Life Like). One only has to look at the threads here about RTR to see the wedge this has driven into the hobby. TRICC was somewhat taken aback when the hobby seemed to like Life Like’s new image and its owners were then bullied to sell out to Walthers, which as we know will spell doom to that line. Same with the Athearn/Horizon deal.
In exchange for critical votes on Defense bills, TRICC manuevered Congress to pass modifications to the copyright and trademark laws. The goal was to get the railroads themselves to help destroy the hobby. Some railroads refused to play - and met their doom. How else can one explain the PRR/NYC merger which was doomed from the start? Knowing that Santa Fe was model railroading friendly (note - SF paid Lionel to use the warbonnet o
Ok, I’ll weigh in here. I am not, nor have I ever been that fond of Union Pacific for a variety of reasons. The reasons are unimportant at this point. I do believe UP feels it is suffering from an image problem, real or perceived. I think they decided to do the heritage schemes for a number of reasons, some already spoken here on this forum. I also believe they are doing it to better their image. Remember, they are not in business to provide us with something to model, they are in business to move stuff and make money. They have a vested interest to keep stockholders, shippers, the public, their workers, and yes, us modelers happy with them. Not everyone will be happy, but at least they are trying to improve their public image. Face it, the heritage paint schemes are awfully well done, maybe not exact, but they don’t detract from the Fallen Flag either.
