Ironic

I find this a bit ironic, considering that they have licensed the wood-sided Coors reefers in multiple scales, as well as an O-gauge version of their plant switcher in Golden, CO; both are available for sale in the Coors & Co. gift shop at the end of the brewery tour. As both a modeler and former Coors employee, I'm a bit disgusted.

Mike in CO

Just strange to me

I sometimes feel large companies and corporations that put such prohibitive restrictions on the use of their logos for these type of situations lose sight of the benefits. While the company has and should have all rights to their corporate identity and perhaps charge a nominal fee for it's use, it is essentially getting free advertising. In almost every other form of distribution of their image, they are paying and in fact PAYING A LOT to get their company name and logo public exposure. In this case, they are getting exposure for free or even getting paid for others to do it for them. Now I can fully understand if the logo is being bastardized, or misrepresented. But that is an issue they could easily control.

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It cuts both ways.

Twisted Sister used to happily let their fans make all sort of matter of fan regalia and market it.

This all changed when Six Flags wanted to name a roller Twisted Sister without paying the proper licensing fees to the band.  Their grounds? Twisted Sister wasn't enforcing their brand for this group, so why should Six Flags be any different?

Twisted Sister did a 180 on their fans and now asks that all regalia that is sold is officially licensed work.

The reason the prices are so high is not so much because of the little guys, it's because of the big guys the little guys can't compete with in the first place.  In the end, Goodyear has to charge the model railroad manufacturers the same prices they charge the hasbros and mattels of the universe.

It's not the coorporations ...

... but rather their lawyers that is usually the problem in these situations.  (And those lawyers are simply doing their job, which is to protect the company and its interests.)

Hate to say it guys...

It's toys.

When I was the art department for Promotex, (1994-2002,) whenever we tried to license a beer company the reply came back that they no longer granted licensing for products that they considered toys, or part of the toy market.

Not Toys, but Political Correctness

I think the real issue is beer companies can not be seen as promoting their product to the under drinking age crowd. Since model railroading is enjoyed and marketed to kids as well as adults the PC cops prevent the beer companies from allowing their logo to be used in a manner that might be construed as promoting under age drinking.  Yes you could say they are lumping model railroading with toys, but how would you distinguish between a toy train set and a model railroad that is only viewed by adults.  And I really doubt the later exists, on all but a very tiny scale.

Toys - yes

Jim,

You are correct, this is the point that they make, however, they also display their name in hundreds of toy stores on thousands of die-cast car collectibles. Which somehow are not marketed to kids on the shelf next to the trains?

I'm not arguing what you said, because it really is the meat of what I was saying before. The lawyers just don't apply the principal consistently - primarily because the nascar/diecast market is huge and is part of the nascar promotional program which basically forces (drives?) the issue in that market.

Ah, but Nascar is adults

I suspect the Nascar thing is seen as more to adults and the kids are just building models of real cars. In other words, selective blindness.

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Take one good look at any movie where a kid drinks a beer and watch how quickly the MPAA goes from a PG or a PG-13 or even an R...

Endorsing toys would make it appear that they endorse underage drinking - and there are people who will sue over that.

Its the law.

Worked in the industry, they are restricted in how they can advertise and build boards are one of them. Toys or real, this industry will be attacked by it's enemies. Remember the neoproabations want them out of business. What do you think is behind lower blood alcohol level to .05 . On DUI.