A statement on The Titfield Thunderbolt.

[autocoach]

If you think this copycat nonsense is confined to the UK prototype market, note that after Trix/Marklin announced their new run of the HO UP 4--8-8-4 Big Boy, Hornby's Rivarossi brand announced a rerun of their version in the 2022 International Hornby announcements.

Edited January 16, 2022 by autocoach

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, autocoach said:

If you think this copycat nonsense is confined to the UK prototype market, note that after Trix/Marklin announced their new run of the HO UP 4--8-8-4 Big Boy, Hornby's Rivarossi brand announced a rerun of their version in the 2022 International Hornby announcements.

 

Hardly copycat - unless on Trix's part. Simply reasonable competition.

[autocoach]

1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Hardly copycat - unless on Trix's part. Simply reasonable competition.

Probably neither will make a profit now on new sales of their models of this prototype.  I would call it destructive competition. And the North American market has been awash in Big Boy models since everyone tried to crash/cash on the restoration of one for the 2019 150th anniversary of the completion of the US transcontinental railroad.  Unless you have an enormous HO model railroad replicating the UP between Laramie and Cheyenne,  Wyoming these would be for collectors only.   

[boxbrownie]

16 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Hardly copycat - unless on Trix's part. Simply reasonable competition.

Although it does reek a bit of maybe Hornby thinking the other manufacturer may have got some market research which favoured a re-run and Hornby decided to take advantage of that gamble, sure not infringement of any kind but a little smelly. 

[Dunsignalling]

Trouble is that Hornby has created such a pattern of aggressive duplication that nobody will even consider the possibility of pure coincidence any more!

[PaulRhB]

1 hour ago, autocoach said:

Unless you have an enormous HO model railroad replicating the UP between Laramie and Cheyenne,  Wyoming these would be for collectors only.   

er no you can do it in a room here as Benjy has ably demonstrated

 

 

1 hour ago, autocoach said:

Hornby's Rivarossi brand announced a rerun of their version in the 2022 International Hornby announcements.

Trix, Rivarossi, Athearn & MTH have been churning them out since 4014 was restored three years ago and they were all existing models in their ranges. 
 

 

1 hour ago, autocoach said:

Probably neither will make a profit now on new sales of their models of this prototype.  I would call it destructive competition. And the North American market has been awash in Big Boy models since

Well there must be some demand rolling on for them to be rerun so much so close together and as the prices were getting silly secondhand it was certainly pleasing to me when I picked an Athearn one up at less than new price. 
 

I don’t have a huge layout either, just a couple of modules 

 

 

 

[boxbrownie]

51 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Trouble is that Hornby has created such a pattern of aggressive duplication that nobody will even consider the possibility of pure coincidence any more!

Very true, a case of crying Wolf….sort of.

[Darius43]

Implied License

 

Not railway related but this story in the Guardian regarding “implied license” is interesting.

 

Could Hornby use a similar defence?

 

Darius

 

 

[PaulRhB]

2 hours ago, Darius43 said:

Implied License

 

Not railway related but this story in the Guardian regarding “implied license” is interesting.

 

Could Hornby use a similar defence?

 

Darius

 

 

Not really because he’s wearing a commercial product, if you have to license every item of designer clothing then many reality shows would never get aired as they’d have to have so many licenses to pay for. He’s trying to use the graphics as the lever but unless it’s graphics are his trademark or registered copyright It’s unlikely he will get much joy except as goodwill in that suit, it’s more aimed at publicity  
Same as you can model a commercially sold vehicle in a film but it cannot carry the company logo or graphics, paint colour being exempt, without a license unless it’s a registered colour like the silliness over extreme black. 
Hornby have infringed by putting the wording and graphics of film images and a vehicle only seen in the film, Dan’s coach body. As has been mentioned several times the loco, Loriot and brake van are impossible to cover as physical items although the Thunderbolt name on the loco and graphics on the chimney would be covered by the film copyright as it only appeared like that in the film. 
Note that Britt Allcroft tried unsuccessfully to stop the Talyllyn locos and Stepney appearing in the story liveries but it was thrown out because they had carried them in real life, in the TR locos case with permission of the Rev before the copyright passed to BA so they had existed in the real world in those colours. What they could do was stop them using the grey face that hadn’t been used previous to the copyright transferring. Note the TR gets around this by putting flesh coloured faces on their locos when in red! 

Edited January 17, 2022 by PaulRhB

[Compound2632]

12 hours ago, autocoach said:

Unless you have an enormous HO model railroad replicating the UP between Laramie and Cheyenne,  Wyoming these would be for collectors only.   

 

A similar argument applies to many of Hornby's recent locomotive releases.

[kevinlms]

On 12/01/2022 at 02:21, Pint of Adnams said:

But I remember, and still think of, Hornby as O gauge tinplate and Dublo from Meccano in Liverpool. That stuff from Margate was called Triang, formerly Rovex, and I still think of it as such.

In a sense, the successive predecessor owners '(mis)appropriated' the Hornby brand in the hope of seeming to be the better product.

But seriously, do people new to the hobby associate 'Hornby' with O Gauge tinplate and with 'Hornby Dublo' from Meccano?

 

Those ranges have been dead for decades, in their true form. YOU and many others that have been in the hobby for a few decades, might like to think that the 1960s are still with us (I got my first train set in the mid 1960s and it was Tri-ang, because Hornby had already gone by then).

 

Hornby Railways has been advertising for years, including on media such as TV, so anyone under say 40, is more likely to associate with buying an HST in OO (despite the person who was depicted on the 'Age of the Train' ads), rather than an old clockwork model.

 

Tri-ang couldn't continue with the Tri-ang name, because it had gone with the range of prams and similar items at the split up. But they owned the 'Hornby' name and it made sense to use it, rather than invent a new name.

 

Not that I'm defending their seemingly dodgy practice over the 'Titfield Thunderbolt'. It's just that I have never seen any connection with 'Hornby Railways', with the products of Binns Road, in the nearly 60 years, since Meccano went broke!

[Titan]

2 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

Not really because he’s wearing a commercial product

 

He most certainly is not!  The whole basis of the claim is that the jacket is unique, it was specially made for him and there is no other jacket like it at all, let alone commercially available!  One of the more relevant parts of the lawsuit is not that the individual components of the jacket's design being unique, but the unique way they are arranged and assembled, i.e. like assembling a unique train formation for a film...

 

The other pertinent part is that the jacket appeared on the Netflix show without permission but he let it ride, Netflix apparently believing that since he had given permission for his other clothes to feature it covered this as well, but when it subsequently was used by Lego he wanted to enforce his IP/copywright.  The amount of £££ that a lego license could bring will be massive, and if he loses because he ignored the earlier infringement, and therefore lego win, then it will be the perfect example to prove wrong those that think it is not worth Studio Canal fighting over what might be considered a small infringement. He didn't, and he could now lose many multiples of the  amount he did not fight for.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Titan

[kevinlms]

On 12/01/2022 at 02:21, Dunsignalling said:

 

In this case back down gracefully before you get dragged into a legal quagmire that you are probably going to wind up in the deep end of. Continue with those items that don't infringe anyone else's agreements and promote them on the same basis. The lesson to be drawn is to be first to obtain similar licences in future.

 

John

 

The risk is that manufacturers may take out licences and then never make the models, thus blocking others from taking up the challenge.

 

Remember what happened with the James Bond 'Casino Royale'? It took almost 40 years to become a 'proper' JB film and not a spoof.

[PaulRhB]

49 minutes ago, Titan said:

 

He most certainly is not!  The whole basis of the claim is that the jacket is unique, it was specially made for him and there is no other jacket like it at all, let alone commercially available!  One of the more relevant parts of the lawsuit is not that the individual components of the jacket's design being unique, but the unique way they are arranged and assembled, i.e. like assembling a unique train formation for a film...

 But the jacket itself isn’t the claim, the artwork is. 

“Concannon's onginal artwork, composed and arranged in Concannon's signature propaganda-infused aesthetic. Concannon owns the copynght in the artwork embodied in the Concannon Jacket,”

not the fabric so we are back to copyright of graphic images not the item itself. On the graphic side it’s muddied by Lego holding a license from Netflix so while Lego may be stopped selling more by that they produced it in good faith and if that license is found to be flawed then they will just bounce it back to Netflix. 
It’s a much weaker case than quoting the title of a film and reproducing exactly one of the key ‘characters’ which makes it likely a speculative litigation that’s unfortunately all too common. Lego haven’t even copied the graphics exactly hence ‘composed and arranged’ and generally those claims don’t win. Anyway regardless it’s up to the companies and lawyers of both examples to sort out how much money they will risk on it. 
The only identifiable similarity are the CND logo and a skull, one which he doesn’t own copyright and the other is a common theme on clothing and hasn’t been reproduced exactly. 

Edited January 17, 2022 by PaulRhB

[frobisher]

53 minutes ago, Titan said:

He most certainly is not!  The whole basis of the claim is that the jacket is unique, it was specially made for him and there is no other jacket like it at all, let alone commercially available!  One of the more relevant parts of the lawsuit is not that the individual components of the jacket's design being unique, but the unique way they are arranged and assembled, i.e. like assembling a unique train formation for a film...

 

The Lego design is at least 10% different which is sufficient under copyright law, plus I think it would also be covered under parody usage as well which it clearly is.

[Dunsignalling]

29 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

The risk is that manufacturers may take out licences and then never make the models, thus blocking others from taking up the challenge.

 

Remember what happened with the James Bond 'Casino Royale'? It took almost 40 years to become a 'proper' JB film and not a spoof.

But licences don't come free, and anyone who did it would be tying up money for no return.

 

Also, in the case of an exclusive licence coupled to an anniversary situation (like the Titfield example), is unlikely to be permanent. Once the profile-raising event is past, any interest in producing goods to exploit it will fall off and no licensee will want to pay for a longer period than they judge to be necessary. My guess is that the one held by Rapido is unlikely to be for more than five years.

 

Even items considered to have more continuing value, such as the Thomas The Tank Engine licence, come up for renewal at regular intervals. Hornby chose to discontinue their holding of the UK version, leaving it open to be re-let.

 

John

Edited January 17, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[kevinlms]

15 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

But licences don't come free, and anyone who did it would be tying up money for no return.

 

Also, in the case of an exclusive licence coupled to an anniversary situation (like the Titfield example), is unlikely to be permanent. Once the profile-raising event is past, any interest in producing goods to exploit it will fall off and no licensee will want to pay for a longer period than they judge to be necessary. My guess is that the one held by Rapido is unlikely to be for more than five years.

 

Even items considered to have more continuing value, such as the Thomas The Tank Engine licence, come up for renewal at regular intervals. Hornby chose to discontinue their holding of the UK version, leaving it open to be re-let.

 

John

Of course they don't come free, unless the copyright holder is unusually generous.

 

History is littered with people that buy up licences/ranges or whatever and then do nothing with them. Certainly it's happened before in model railway land. How many kit makers ranges have been purchased, with the intention of re-launching the product, and for many reasons, disappeared without trace, except for posts on RMweb, asking if manufacturer XYZ is still in business, as they are ignoring my phone calls/emails/knock on door of last known address?

 

It isn't the amount of cash tied up, it's the overall scheme of things, to the purchaser. If they do their sums, they may decide to let their licence lapse, if they work out, that it isn't the money tree they thought it might be.

[ruggedpeak]

I saw jacket related comments before reading the associated article but immediately assumed Michael Portillo had kicked off legal action....!

[Dunsignalling]

3 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Of course they don't come free, unless the copyright holder is unusually generous.

 

History is littered with people that buy up licences/ranges or whatever and then do nothing with them. Certainly it's happened before in model railway land. How many kit makers ranges have been purchased, with the intention of re-launching the product, and for many reasons, disappeared without trace, except for posts on RMweb, asking if manufacturer XYZ is still in business, as they are ignoring my phone calls/emails/knock on door of last known address?

 

It isn't the amount of cash tied up, it's the overall scheme of things, to the purchaser. If they do their sums, they may decide to let their licence lapse, if they work out, that it isn't the money tree they thought it might be.

The thing with something like the Titfield licence is that once this big anniversary is past, it's not going to have much commercial value until the centenary. By then, almost all of we who fondly remember the film from our younger days will be gone and the typical market reaction will just be "Titfield What?"

 

I reckon, once Rapido have cleared what they make, and possibly done at least the loco in 7mm, they'll only hang on to the licence until it expires. They don't strike me as the sort of outfit that would waste money on maintaining the rights to a "back catalogue" item that they aren't going to make any more out of.

 

John

 

 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Dunsignalling
Punctuation

[Steamport Southport]

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

The risk is that manufacturers may take out licences and then never make the models, thus blocking others from taking up the challenge.

 

Remember what happened with the James Bond 'Casino Royale'? It took almost 40 years to become a 'proper' JB film and not a spoof.

 

That was because Cubby Broccoli deemed it unfilmable. If you read the book it's just a book about playing cards. Who would pay to watch that?

 

The copyright issues with the Bond franchise was with Thunderball and mostly about the character of Blofeld which were partially written by Kevin McClory who was a minor scriptwriter. He was asking for large amounts of money or to be involved with the other movies.

 

They just stopped using the character and then killed him off by dropping him down a chimney!

 

Using the phrase "I'll buy you a delicatessen in stainless steel", a common bribe by the mafia was to pay for refurbishments of restaurants that were in their "control". He was just seen as a moneygrabber.

 

It took McClory's death before copyright was passed back.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_McClory

 

 

 

Jason

Edited January 17, 2022 by Steamport Southport

[The Stationmaster]

19 hours ago, autocoach said:

Probably neither will make a profit now on new sales of their models of this prototype.  I would call it destructive competition. And the North American market has been awash in Big Boy models since everyone tried to crash/cash on the restoration of one for the 2019 150th anniversary of the completion of the US transcontinental railroad.  Unless you have an enormous HO model railroad replicating the UP between Laramie and Cheyenne,  Wyoming these would be for collectors only.   

But in this case both were re-runs of earlier models presumably with limited new investment and after getting into what was obviously going to be a good marketing opportunity.  It's not as if it there were two companies each spending well over =£100,000O on brand new product investment and over the years there have been more models of Big Boys from more manufacturers than most of us can count (or bother to count) - far in excess of, for example, Class 47 duplication from British companies.

[Ribird]

On 15/01/2022 at 17:18, The Stationmaster said:

And Hornby don't appear to need any bills from the legal trade to push their prices higher judging by their recent increases.

Thing is, Hornby is already saying to stockist they will be raising prices again by 10% around mid year. 

[AMJ]

I presume that if they were to remove any mention of the film and just call it film pack 1 then that's not misrepresenting the item unlike inspired by....

[Talltim]

On 11/01/2022 at 16:30, friscopete said:

..who is Rapido again ?

[Talltim]

On 11/01/2022 at 17:00, Peter G said:

 For some years Hornby has announced and delivered in shorter timescales than any other manufacturer.

Errm, Tangent only announces when the stuff is in their warehouse.