I know in a lot of areas it makes sense, but in this specific scenario, what is the downside of giving licensing to DTG, and also, why does any of that change if the community is allowed to change it? It's not like someone's going to see a vulgar custom livery and think "Ugh, that company supports this, I'm not going to use their service anymore," and if that is something that happens that's really upsetting. Like what bad press could come from this. It's not even like this is a super large game, and most players have an interest in trains. So any flaws that would be highlighted, like the platform being dirty, most likely isn't going to result in bad press. If anything, they'd get bad press for having squeaky clean platforms because people know the truth already, so it'd look worse for them. This is kind of a rant, but it genuinely makes no sense to me, and in my opinion is a complete loss of free advertising. As I said before, it's more of a rant, so I may have missed something obvious in my irritation
Companies are very protective of their image, see responses below Actually that very much does happen. Look at the recent issue of a 3rd party "transforming a trainer to include a drop of human blood" and the backlash against the original manufacturers even though they categorically stated they didn't do it... People make their own opinions (sometimes via nonsense news output such as facebook) and then run with it on social media I have actually seen in game photos (specifically London Victoria on TSC) used in news articles about rail works... Who's going to look at a small picture on a website news article and think "is that actually real?". There are many who really wouldn't Yes, you have. IP law is complex and involves multiple laws in multiple countries with vast lawyer expenses behind it. Some companies have rights in some countries but not in others. Some companies have sold the right to use their own name in other countries so can't even go to that country and sell their own products. Some companies have held rights in the past but not now... And then you get into companies which may have been formed in one place, started on another place, sold their rights to that other place but retain the rights in the original place... It's a minefield of modern creation and therefore "what may be obvious to you likely isn't true in fact"
Another part of the problem, as Sam brought up in the stream yesterday, is that railways (certainly US freight railroads) are not "consumer products" like beer or athletic shoes or even automobiles and aren't all that much in the licensing game - other than the London Underground's, who really makes use of licensed train trademarks? - and often don't even have anyone really in charge of it. It's not like DTG can phone up X Railway's Department of Train Game Licensing and say, "Hello, we'd like a license please." In reality, they send a letter to whatever department at the corporate offices appears to look like it might handle licensing matters, but then on receipt Marketing doesn't know what to do with it so they pass it to Legal who pass it to Public Relations who don't know what to do with it so it sits at the bottom of the in-box......
Oh, yea I missed a lot. Thanks for replying, that clears up a lot, it also makes me less upset, really just disappointed now lmao, not DTG, or even the company's fault, it seems Sam really wasn't kidding when he said it was complicated
As a good example of how complex trademarks are. Nipper the dog. In the UK he's owned by HMV the music shop - outside the UK HMV can not use Nipper in their logo. In Japan he's owned by Victor Company of Japan, who themselves are not allowed to trade as Victor outside of Japan - hence JVC on exported electronics In the US he's owned by Sony Entertainment who acquired RCA records. Outside these territories he belongs to Technicolor who obtained them from GE who obtained them in the breakup of RCA in the 1980s. All were formally part of the RCA Victor conglomerate at some point, but as that broke up the rights ended up scattered.
Or Cadbury chocolate Founded in Birmingham UK, formed a town called Bourneville (which national rail still pay Cadbury to call the local station) Then sold the rights in the US to a different company, so they could no longer call Cadbury chocolate in US territories Cadbury chocolate Then Cadbury US were bought by Kraft, but not in the UK so Kraft in the US could sell Cadbury chocolate, but Cadbury couldn't but Kraft couldn't sell Cadbury chocolate to the UK because Cadbury UK owned the brand everywhere else in the world (and in the UK Kraft are only known for cheese biscuits so nobody would buy "Kraft Chocolate") Then Kraft bought out Cadbury UK, joining the brand together an thus the company was whole once more... Except... Kraft went down the swanny and were bought out by Mondalez who now own all the Kraft and Cadbury brands, Cadbury in the US is now the same thing as Cadbury in the UK but network rail are still paying for that damn name...
Would very much be the other way round if any money was being transferred. The IP holder would definitely be the one seeking recompense or agreement rather than them saying "this is advertising because those people in Germany will definitely go to Lewes to see if the platforms are the same..."
Mondalez was spun off from Kraft in one of these strange corporate restructurings that happens every so often. Kraft split in Two The new Kraft (making US "cheese") which later merged with Heinz and the original Kraft company which was renamed Mondalez (making sweets)
I was sort of being tongue in cheek but I still find it weird that a company (DTG) would pay another company to use their branding. If anything, it should really be a compromise agreement as both get benefits from it. I remember years ago asking a similar question to a computer games magazine i.e. how much do the game company pay the magazine to put their demos on their cover disks. When they said that the magazine pay the games company, I was gobsmacked. Not only were the magazine providing the best form of advertising for the games, they were paying for the privilege. I supposed it helped sales of the magazine as well so, again, maybe a non financial agreement would have been appropriate.
There will be a payment - even if in some cases it'll just be a token amount to satisfy contract law (thinking Heritage lines here)
I mean, Union Pacific literally sued model train companies for using their and their acquired fallen flags without any form of licensing in the 2000's.
The railway companies will get very very little additional ridership by having their brands in an emulation game not made by a top flight software company DTG will gain a high percentage of additional players by having licensed branded content in their emulation game So percentage wise it makes sense that DTG gain more than the train company, therefore DTG pay for the priviledge
Sam has explained the difficulties with copyright of passenger announcements in the roadmap stream. However, I’ve been watching some Youtube driver’s eye view videos which feature on train passenger announcements. I can understand that companies like Video125 probably cover all angles as far as this is concerned but some of the more amateur films presumably contravene copyright laws, probably unknowingly, by including these in the soundtrack.
There are any number of hurdles to overcome in getting a license, and as a license holder there may be an equally rocky road to being able to provide a license. From companies who have no experience in licensing and therefore have no idea if they're being taken for a ride, to those whose corporate structure is such that trademark use is fraught with complexity. There tends not to be any animosity involved ever, it all comes down to whether the TOC in question is willing and able to do the work needed to grant the license, and whether we're willing and able to jump through whatever hoops the agreement requires.
Working for a large multi-national (global Fortune 500) I am painfully aware of how far companies go to protect their brand and image. Techically, we're not even supposed to print out our company logo in colour unless the printer has been properly calibrated (since our corporate/product colour is a specific trademarked shade), and that's on internal stuff let alone public/commercial distribution.
