Ummmmmm. I'd very much doubt this is a part of their business plan.

How about we simply assume that VMT will act reasonably and in recognition that every person who lines the track and takes a photo and shares it with their friends is an uncompensated PR agent for them. As such, they are only interested in having some control over the commercial exploitation of their locomotive, which does not seem at all unfair or unreasonable to me. It is in their best interest that the quality and context of any such reflect well on them, and that they share in any profits.

Give the fearmongering a rest.

dave

I believe the biggest concern people have at least as far as YouTube is concerned is that many YouTube channels, including many who make rail videos are monetized. YouTube has a system set up that certain users actually make money every time someone watches their video (I have a friend for example who makes around $500 a month doing this). Basically it all comes down to if you make money from video views on YouTube and upload a video of 611, would they have to pay a fee to the VTM? Also would the VTM go after say, a random blogger who has no clue what 611 is let alone its copyright status and just happened to be in the same area that 611 is passing through and takes a video for their blog which they also earn money from?

I concurr not good wording on my part. I do believe the move to protect/trademark 6ii is part of the larger business plan to maximize funding by establishing the legal basis for "officially licensed" merchandise and media.

A "random blogger who has no clue what 611 is let alone its TRADEMARK status" (note correction here, a VERY important one!) is NOT going to make "$500 a month" from that video--unless they're the one person that captures some massive wreck as it happened.

The folks who make a fair chunk of change are people who dedicate full-time to it, who work every social media angle and opportunity to monetize things--possibly including a nudie cam, a multi-book publishing contract, or something. And given that, I have no sympathy for them if VMT invoices them for $100 or $1,000.

Haha I agree on the name change as I don't want to be fined for using the name 6ii.

For those unclear on the 3 here is a link to an elementary clarification of trademark, copyright, and patent.

http://www.lawmart.com/forms/difference.htm

Ok just to dispel a thing or two about YouTube...some railfans do make that kind of money per month, but it is all based on advertising revenue. If people click on a random ad attached to that video, then they get 'x' amount per click. If someone simply watches the ad, that person gets 'y' amount. This usually adds up to a few cents for each ad view each time. So it has less to do with the content of the video itself and more to do with watching ads and how much the advertiser chooses to pay for each ad view or click.

Perhaps the easiest method to clear this up would be a press release from VMT themselves, detailing their thought process with this action.

This news broke over a week ago. Still waiting for that clarification...........................

Here is a link detailing the specifics of the initial application. Nothing has been approved yet.

http://fireup611.org/trademark/

Here is a link detailing the specifics of the initial application. Nothing has been approved yet.

http://fireup611.org/trademark/

I had already got some photos of 611 together I was planning on using for posters before this and before I even knew 611 was a thing. I just thought the photos were cool looking historic streamlined locomotive. The fact that the photos are of 611 changes nothing, just like the Louvre doesn't own a trade mark on the Mona Lisa. The fact that you can take something in the public domain and trademark it seems very unconstitutional. That's right I said unconstitutional "to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"

Your first challenge is to prove that the subject(s) being trademarked were ever in the "public domain."

The 700-Megaton Mouse Known As Disney has continued to do its best to render your argument void, with the continued lobbying for repeated changes to copyright law seemingly centered on keeping the somewhat older Mickey Mouse from going the same route as you think 611 has already gone.

In my opinion, your apparent belief that you or anyone else can do whatever you want with any photos you/they take of N&W 611 because it's "in the public domain" is more specious and vacuous than the VMT's trademark pursuit--which I'm still skeptical is going to go the way they seemingly want it to.

Authors and inventors speaks directly to Copyright and Patents. Trademarks serve a different purpose, however, large corporations have been perverting that purpose for the last forty years, because so long as you continue to pay the fee, trademarks never expire.

The original purpose of trademarks was to prevent confusion in the marketplace. If Samuel Colt was known to make an excellent firearm, it was to everyone's advantage to give him exclusive use of the name, to prevent the guy whose products regularly blew up from also using the Colt name. The fact that Colt might want to also sell hats, tee shirts, beer, and breakfast cereal was never envisioned, and in fact was somewhat prevented by the system of categories used to register trademarks.

The perversion started with a couple landmark court rulings in the seventies when a couple NFL teams decided that they wanted exclusive right to charge money for ANYTHING that even remotely referred to their teams, and the whole system has gone downhill from there. There is going to come a time when you won't even be able to sell an image of a street scape, because there will be dozens, maybe hundreds of recognizable trademarks showing, and you will be required to track down and license every single one.

So much for freedom of expression.

Dennis,

where your legal system should have served the people it serves the "rights owners" and feeds the lawyers now. The Locomotive Which Must Not be Named, as all the other steam locomotives, once had been saved in good spirit to share for future generations, and 50 years later those who happen to posess it now search to make money out of claims which would have been called unjustified not so long ago.

"Not enough tickets sold for the trip? Well, let's see if we find someone with an illegal t-shirt on!"

Even if that museum does not necessarily need to act like this, it now may be allowed to do so, and I believe it simply shouldn't have that right, apart from their own new logos, but leaving out the locomotive as such.

They have collected public money to get the loco running and now they leave the impression they want to privatize all aspects of it.


Mike

Or, it might be a daunting proposition for some tiny static-display museum to have to hire attorneys against an aggressive self-representing opponent with too much time on his hands, finding themselves haled into HIS court 1000 miles away, where they don’t know the judges or the lay of the land.


Ding. There's your causus belli. Now you get to shoot first and choose venue.

Regardless of trademarks, you are ALWAYS allowed to identify a thing by its common name. We had a case where a sex escort who said “I’ll be at the Phoenix Inn May 3-5 and Tuscon Hotel May 6-8”… she wasn’t implying an endorsement or comarketing, but a hotel objected to the use of their name at all. Sorry hotel, it doesn’t work that way, I finally came up with this descriptive: your name doesn't belong to you. You can’t silence others by denying them the use of your name. 611, shout it loud and proud.


LOL you can use Big Lebowski references anytime!


They have combined two separate things here:
a) logo usage guidelines, the exact specific ways they want these logos and art used.
b) claim of trademark, which may be their salvation, since it seems to limit their claim only to these particular styles of use. Most of us agree they can’t trademark “611”. But we’d also agree they CAN trademark “611” in that very specific font, in gold, on a tuscan red background, with gold stripes top and bottom.

And of course they can trademark those particular line-art drawings, but they can’t trademark ALL line-art drawings of J-classes.

Ask Campbell’s Soup about Andy Warhol.

In cases like this, half the problem is IP Chicken Littles panicking and saying the holder is claiming more rights than they are actually claiming.


Hollywood stars have a lot more at stake than VMT does, and if there was a way to stop paparazzi legally, they’d have found it. They can’t. Neither can VMT. Anything you film with your feet on public property (roadways, shoulders) is yours to sell to the tabloids. If they don’t want 611 filmed, their recourse is to stay on their own private land and don’t emit any marketable photons onto public land.

What they CAN do is license you the right to use the official logos, slogans and marks in your production and promotion, which is fair, just, and will properly memorialize your financial support of the project.

I certainly would not pay them money otherwise, if all they want is payola to essentially promise to not sue you, I’d call that extortion. Very loudly.


Nonsense. It works as always: it defends those who defend themselves. Problem is nowadays, any clown gets his nose out of joint (usually on something he's actually wrong about) and expects the Law Fairy to kiss it and make it better. Make it better your own self. Freedom ain't free.

We who pay attention to this area, recognize it for what it is: patent trolls. And we know exactly how this ends. First person who actually stands up to them, shuts them down cold. Til then they make a lot of money.