So do you know if it is a state trademark or a US trademark?

All I can say is that this could become a PR nightmare for VMT. What they are saying is that any photos that you take of 611, including photos that you already have, cannot legally be sold without first contacting them via an email address that does not even work. trademark@vmt.org is an invalid address!

This action taken by VMT is certainly to cause much consternation amongst the railfan population, as well it should. VT has every right to trademark their museum's name, and even the logos that they created, but as has been mentioned before, to trademark a 3D object that has been in existence for 65 years is not a good move on their part.

Im wondering if you could still take pictures but Photoshop out a 1 making it 6 1 or 61. You would not be breaking trademark law by doing that right?

Nope, won't work.
"Do not use the Virginia Museum of Transportation, Fire Up 611, the Class J locomotive or the Class J 611 locomotive in the name of your applications, products, domains, etc. This includes merely adding number or letter combinations to the brand assets. For example, Fire Up 6114US! or Class J 613 or Class J 611-A."

I would also like someone to explain this one:
"The Virginia Museum of Transportation is dedicated to chronicling our country’s rail heritage. As such, we ask writers and historians to work with our Virginia Rail Heritage Partners and Museum Curators and Historians before publishing any works of fiction and non-fiction. Permission from the Virginia Museum of Transportation must be given before any works of fiction or non-fiction are published. "

So if you have a collection of J class locomotive photos that you took yourself or own the rights to, the VMT claims to have the right to prevent you from publishing that book. Or, if you are a fiction writer and write a novel that includes a J class locomotive, VMT claims to have the authority to prevent you from publishing that book. Or, if they grant you permission they will demand a cut of your profits.

Emmo on the other page brought up a good point what would happen if I started selling K class 111 locomotive shirts and models. its obviously not a J class nor is it the 611.

Thank you VMT for everything you have done and continue to do to help keep 611 running...even when everyone has an opinion.

The original topic has nothing to do with how much people have given to the VMT/611. I have, as I'm sure many of the other people who posted in this thread have given as well. This is about copyright infringement, whether or not this is a good idea for the VMT and it's applications - as well as whether or not it's a good idea for other railroads/museums to implement. Not about whether or not we're grateful for 611 running - we all are!

Lest I need to remind y'all, we already gnashed our teeth, wailed at the wall, rended our garments, flagellated ourselves, and the like years ago when Union Pacific carried out almost identical trademark protection on its logos, paint schemes, and the like.

The idea is NOT to clamp down on every last railfan trackside. The idea is simply to prevent, or at least rein in, rampant huckstering and profiteering when (not if, when) some t-shirt shop throws together cheap t-shirts and caps to sell at the street festival when 611 visits the likes of Manassas, Radford, Toccoa, etc. It also prevents Thomas and Chugginton from having "visits" from 611 on "very special" episodes of their shows, or prevents a cheap and chintzy toy train version from appearing rather than an officially authorized Bachmann Spectrum or Lionel/MTH model (or even Brio).

It also, in theory, prevents Joe Hack and his cousin Jim Pictershuter from getting hired by the Hong Kong printers who print up "bargain books" for Books-a-Billion and Bunns & Noodle, and throwing together a truly excrerable "611: The Phoenix Of American Steam" book, which sell by the thousands for $14.95 and steals sales from the "officially authorized" $39.95 book with excellent photography and writing, supporting the VMT.

No one's going to be prevented from selling on eBay a slide--oh, sorry, got wrapped in nostalgia for the 1980s there for a second--from posting a photo of 611 on Facebook or RailPictures. What they'll be prevented from doing is making a poster that will be sold in every Michaels and Hobby Lobby across the nation without paying appropriate "tribute" to the subject of the photo and its owners and custodians.

And I, myself, had a poster print of 611 in my dorm room in college, on one of its first runs north to Roanoke from Birmingham, stomping through the kudzu around Toccoa, Georgia. I think I still have that poster in a frame around here somewhere........

So are you saying I shoulden't be able to sell posters for images that I have the right to or are public domaine. Last I checked trade marks were supose to protect the people and or group that created the item or the entinety that baught the rights from the rightful trade mark holders.

It's a US trademark that they've applied for, but there are limits to enforcement of that. State trademarks that predate a conflicting US trademark generally get ruled in favor of when contested in court. One example is Burger King-there are locations around the world where they do business under different trade names due to trademark issues. In Australia, they do business as Hungry Jack's due to another company holding the Burger King trademark. In Burger King vs. Burger King, the scope of the Lanham Act was defined and Burger King of Mattoon, Illinois given exclusive right to the use of the Burger King trademark in that city.

That said, I can foresee a number of issues with trademarking a locomotive class or number. I doubt that VMT would pursue enforcement of the trademark except in the most egregious cases, due mostly to the expense. Even if you get court costs awarded, you don't always have the guarantee of recovering them.

Well I did ask the Fire Up 611 page/VMT on their Facebook page - they said yes, if I'm filming 611 as part of a railfan DVD I wanted to sell, and I wanted to use 611 in that DVD, all I would need to do is call them to get their permission to do so. Still awaiting a response about fees, etc and further information.

I don't necessarily believe that this specific trademark application is entirely rational, justifiable, or enforceable.

But the best case I can make FOR such protection is to help prevent, or selectively enforce against, the commercialization of this loco, and other notable preserved locos and such rail artifacts, by folks with the lack of spelling and grammatical ability exemplified above.

(For some reason, I just had flashbacks to both the guy who distracted Sheldon Cooper from Amy aboard the Napa Valley Wine Train in that episode of "The Big Bang Theory" and "the original Superheater" from the old SR/NS excursions...... and now I'm wondering if the latter will show up in Manassas shortly....)

Here's another issue. About which I may be wrong. The late Jim Boyd took some magnificent photos of the Locomotive Which Must Not Be Name and copyrighted them, as was his absolute right to do.

Now, along comes VMT and trademarks everything related to The Locomotive Which Must Not be Named. It would appear that in so doing they have taken away the value of Jim's work, which seems patently unfair to his estate.

I am thinking of changing steamlocomotive.info to refer to the locomotive in question as The Locomotive Which Must Not be Named.

One of the necessities of “property rights” is property protection (there are criminals and thieves you know). V_T owns 6ii and now everything associated with it. It’s theirs not mine. They also have taken the risk of bringing this magnificent machine back to steam. That said they have every right to protect the brand in a manner supportive of the new cost reality of an operating 6ii. Remember they have many millions to go before they have the sustainability level already reached by say Fort Wayne or TVRM. V_T is later to the game, and thus the financial hill to climb is steeper for them. They have to milk every dime they can out of their asset to keep it fired-up. There is a certain arrogance in the trademark maneuver, but there is a hefty risk involved in starting up an enterprise to operate and maintain a steam locomotive to operate on today’s class ones. I don’t like this too much, but I much prefer a living breathing 6ii to a stuffed and mounted one. It’s a trade-off we’ll probably be fine with and likely see more of. As to the intricacies of intellectual and trademark property law V_T will enforce the trademark to the extent they want to pay the legal fees. The laws of diminishing marginal return apply here too.

Other folks have stated, in other places and forums regarding this and other such "questionable" subjects of this nature, that it's virtually impossible for VMT, NS, etc. to control photography of 611, or for that matter any other subject, if it's something visible from a public place and there is no "profit" of any real sort involved.

The way people have been (mis)characterizing the VMT's actions, you would assume that if your back yard abuts a NS main and 611 goes by, and you snap a photo as it goes by, a legal team from VMT will pull up and demand $10, and if you don't pay they'll drag you off to debtor's prison. And if you shot a cell phone video, $50.

No. That's not how it works.

Where it DOES work is if the Discovery Channel, a Hollywood production company, or a book publisher wants to "exploit" such imagery for their (possibly substantial) financial gain, the VMT, as custodians of 611, get the right to financially benefit as well, plus they retain the right to "veto" a use not to their liking--say, someone incorporating 611 video into a pornography film, or someone making 611 "model trains" with an Alco C-C frame and fuel tank.

Now, having said that, there are some lovely "gray areas" as well. What about poster prints of any N&W builder's photos and/or O. Winston Link photos of 611, or reproduction in a book? What about a small-scale commercial-video producer who might stand to make a couple hundred DVDs at best of 611's travels in 2015--does VMT assess him $1 per DVD sold, $5, or $25? (Heck, do people still buy these DVDs in the era of YouTube?)