There seems to be no doubt that the best thing to have happened to the Tourist RR industry was the Polar Express movie. By cloning the screen experience in real life the short lines have found a revenue generator second to none.
I'm told that an outfit thats somehow associated with Mr. Allen Harper has acquired the "rights" to the Polar Express "property" and are now demanding a "royalty" of an outrageous 30% of the GROSS REVENUES of the trains. Is this true?? If so is there some way to get the industry to band together to fight this highway robbery? If it's true, Mr. Harper(Durango&Silverton, Great Smoky Mtn. Ry.) should be ashamed of himself.
I'm a strong believer in the free market and in a way can congratulate him on seeing a business opportunity here-but 30% is clearly a shakedown rate and I'm hoping the industry will have the courage to band together and tell him to get lost!
I'd appreciate learning what the facts here are.
Ross Rowland

The work around is just to call it something else --

Santa Express

North Pole Express

Northern Express...

Raindeer Express

ad nauseum

Bob H

Thirty percent (30%) is the cut of the tickets that has to be paid for the "Day out with Thomas" events. 15% to HIT for name and image and 15% for the locomotive.

I don't recall how much royalties were involved for the Polar Express name, but the Western Maryland Scenic told them to pound sand and called their train the North Pole Express.

Simple question –
My projected revenues are X for a generic “Its Cold Out Here” Express train aimed at the kids. If I use the “Polar Express” branding my projected revenues are Y. Since The branding costs thirty percent of gross then seventy percent of Y must be greater than X (.7Y >X) or I am not going to bother. If I make more money at my bottom line by paying the thirty percent how is it a problem? If nobody is buying the name at thirty percent the market will resolve the question. If anybody is loosing money on “Polar Express” then they need a new business manager.
GME

Sorry, but to me, some basic facts here in our state make this whole argument a moot point. Neither the Huckleberry nor the Henry Ford, nor the Steam Railroading Institute used the name this year in our state. And, in a state that is arguably in one of the worst financial crises of any state in the union, where the jobless rate is double-digit and something as petty as whether you use a name from a movie would be an excellent excuse not to pay to take your kids on a train ride, they did fine.

Oh yeah, one more thing --- given that #1225 was the engine used for 90% of the sound in the Polar Express locomotive, that seems pretty telling. If Warner couldn't force them to take or use the name, then to me they have completely shot themselves in the foot in forcing anyone else to do so. Besides, I hear SRI sold out DOUBLE the number of trips this year that they did last year, when POLAR EXPRESS was even on the tender (with TM). This year, the tender was labeled as it should be: PERE MARQUETTE, and they sold out 18 separate trips, at $60 a piece.

Money talks, b.s. walks.

TJG

If this is true, I would be curious to know how someone was able to buy the rights from the movie company. Two weeks ago I was in the middle of a similar discussion were it was stated that the movie company thought they would be able to generate income by charging the countless railroads running "Polar Express" trains, many of whom were running them years PRIOR to the release of the movie. As it turns out(as I was informed), the movie company has all rights to every aspect of the movie.......However, the rights to the STORY(as in the original publication) are still held by the individual who wrote the book. So, if this is correct, unless the author becomes money hungry then there is nothing to worry about. That is assuming that nothing "movie specific" is used in the process.
All of this said, if someone out there has become opportunistic enough to try and take money out of the hands of museums, shortlines and their rail operations then I would have a problem with that, but hopefully it is only a rumor.

I'm told that an outfit thats somehow associated with Mr. Allen Harper has acquired the "rights" to the Polar Express "property" and are now demanding a "royalty" of an outrageous 30% of the GROSS REVENUES of the trains.

Switch rather than fight (although i think the smokes were supposed to be worth fighting for)

Ross are you serious? If the "industry" (remember preservation/heritage/tourist do not have a well-heeled trade group staffed with 1000 dollar suited lawyers and economists and inside the beltway access) scheduled a showdown, every law firm with the slightest bit of revenue from intellectual property rights and every publishing, software and media company would bury the "industry" under a mountain of amicus briefs before there was one filing..lets not forget how powerful these people are- they were able to get Congress to extend copyright laws a few years ago (yet again) because the original Mickey Mouse cartoons were about to pass into the public domain.

I say take the advice of the other posters and switch. I disagree with trainlawyer that you have to be lacking business acumen to not be able to make money on the "Polar Express". Almost nobody can afford a 30% cut off the top for anything. When it comes to running steam, every last dollar needs to be going into mechanical TLC.

Steamtown created a new story to tell. It incorporates aspects of the origins of Scranton originally known as Slocum Hollow and its coal mining/railroad beginnings. It imparts history with cookies and is a better fit to the NPS educational mission.

Most importantly, there's no lack of butts in seats. Let him choke on the franchise, its only a properly legal monopoly if nobody else has an imagination. Whatever advantage accrues from the awareness of the movie will certainly be lost in a few years.

Me too Ross. Of course the industry trade organization is TRAIN (the venue at which Mr. Harper announced his plan, he is by the way a director). It will be interesting to see if TRAIN has the will to address this issue. I know that the people who started TRAIN (you, Sam Freeman, Huber Leath, Steve Bogen, et.al) would have. As I recall from the meetings that led to the creation of TRAIN (Buffalo & Chicago) in the early 1970s', we banded together to take on a foe that was strangling our industry at that time: the insurance companies.
J.David

Some reflections since my initial posting. J.David is exactly correct. We did form TRAIN in the early 70's as an answer to the then horrendous treatment we shortline and excursion operators were recieving from the insurance industry. It worked and there's no question that TRAIN's existance has helped in that area and despite its trials and tribulations it has been a benefit to the industry.
Since my earlier posting I have learned as J.David mentioned in his post that Harper(or his people) did have the hutzpa to announce at the TRAIN convention in Nov. their "plan" to hold those running Polar Express operations hostage for a 30% royalty!! What gall!!
The good news is that I've also learned that most operators either changed the name of their operations or simply stalled the robbers with the proposed agreements being given to their respective attorneys for "review"and thus avoided them for this year.
I intend to do the research to determine if Harper&Co. have obtained blanket rights to the Polar Express or perhaps as mentioned on one of the above posts possibly only the rights associated with the motion picture, as if they do not control the rights associated with the book that may be a solid way to continue the operations under the original name??
I feel sorry for those few operators who fell for Harpers banditry and hope they'll know better next year??
Ross Rowland

I don't have a dog in this fight, but it seems to me that one of us in the tourist railroad industry is probably a more sympathetic and flexible source for the licensed use of a copywrighted story, identity and title than the proverbial large faceless corporate entity that has within its purview a motion picture studio.

It also seems to me that, like Thomas the Bank Engine, if an entire marketing package complete with press kits, merchandise, etc comes with the license to use the name, a producing organization without expertise in these areas could do better paying the pros to provide this stuff than doing without.

Anybody doing a home grown event at Christmas with another title and selling every seat they can possibly sell, and cleaning out the stock in the gift shop, obviously doesn't need the license or the help. In that case, why complain, or presume to judge other perhaps less fortunate groups that can make good use of it. 70% of 100% beats 100% of 50%.

If the situation was that the studio wished to control the use of its property, and what studio doesn't, which tourist railroad operator has a better proven track record in professional, slick marketing than American Heritage Railways? Looking at it from the POV of the corporate types, it makes sense - they also speak business rather than hobby. It is either them or somebody not in the business like HIT Entertainment - and many of us are not enthusiastic about their level of flexibility.

Coming into this business from management in entertainment and the arts, I don't see a villian here - just the realities of modern corporate business.

Asbestos raincoat in place.

dave

I have re-read Daves posting above several times in an unsuccessful attempt to decipher what he's trying to say. I've concluded that it's essentially an apologistic position for Harper&Co.?? Seems to me that there are some significant differences between the Thomas program and what Harper&Co. have tried to pull with Polar. Namely with Thomas you get a distintive piece of rolling stock as part of the package and a comprehensive program covering all aspects of the venture, and perhaps most importantly you get to make a business decision BEFOREHAND as to whether or nor you want to play. It's interesting to note that a number of well managed properties that have hosted Thomas in the past have in recent years passed as the overall effort vs. the reward was just not there. Polar was an already up and running product(and arguably the most successful) for the industry when Harper appears at the door and says-"Oh-by the way I'll take 30% of your sales"-whilst bringing nothing value added to the party. If that ain't the classic definition of highway robbery I don't know what is! I highly doubt that there were any shortlines out there who had all the necessary ingredients(equipment,on-going pssgr.operation etc.) who were just waiting for a Harper&Co. to come along and show them how to do a Polar program in return for gladly forking over 30%!! The really good news is that as far as I can determine nearly all of the operators this year avoided the trap by either changing the name or stalling Harpers henchmen by one means or another and I'm reasonably confident that by next season a way will be found to eliminate the threat entirely?
It's important to remember that nearly all these operators struggle mightily to keep these operations solvent (I've heard it said that owning/running a tourist shortline railroad is much akin to being a small farmer-you've got to love it to do it) and a stroke of good fortune like Polar only comes along once in a blue moon-and then to have an Opportunist come out of the woodpile and attempt to walk away with the lions share of the funds that otherwise would keep the railroad going and growing- just is unacceptable and wrong!!
At least that's this writers opinion!
Ross Rowland

Ross,
That is the way Big Business is ( well Most Big business) As was said big Business is motivated by Big Profit (insert Big Greed ) where as hobbyist we are motivated by wanting to give something back to the community if we can at the best price we can give them.
it is kinda like what UP is trying to do with their Logo and get a royalty off every thing that has UP on it
(oh well I guess now I have to write a check to UP since I used their letters three times in this post)
Andy

To a large extent the Polar Express and the Photo rights are the same issue from opposite sides. In one case its someone else’s stuff we want to use, in the other it’s our stuff, and we are wondering what our stuff is worth.

The rights to the image/name Polar Express are owned by a corporation, who want to profit from those rights. They appear to think that those rights are worth 30% of the gross.

We are also discussing the intellectual value of potential images of our own collections. In this case we are discussing how much we might get, and whether it is important to protect those images, or make the artifacts available to the public to produce their own images (of our stuff)

There is a body of law that deals with the details of this (and I suspect that the law would support the protection of the Polar Express name, much as it would support one of our railroad museums or tourist lines protecting the image of their collection, or charging a commercial group a fee to use the site or collection in a photo shoot or movie.)

There is also a marketing/public relations issue, and an issue of value of the franchise.

Taking up the value first, it no one calls their holiday tourist train the Polar Express, and there for the owners of the copyright don’t get 30% I would assume eventually the price would drop, or they will add support services, or they will just abandon the idea. Similarly, if a museum publishes a fee schedule for commercial photo shoots, and the fee is too high the commercial photographers will just move down the road. If the fee is reasonable they would pay it.

The public relationship issue is less valid for the Polar Express, but very valid for our museums. Making the public feel welcome is a major part of what we should be doing (although many of us get so involved with our love of trains we forget about details like clean bathrooms and welcoming signage.) Making the feel that they are welcome to take photos would be positive, telling they can’t would be negative. (Its more complicated when photos are taken by railfans of photo special trains running along the line, from non museum property, but that is a different issue.) Back to the Polar Express, if the owners of the rights thought that having little Polar Express trains running about would help then profit from the franchise, they would allow the use. If they thought that a high price and possibly negative effect on museums and tourist would make them look like the Grich they would probably drop the fees.

I was at the November TRAIN convention and attended the seminar where this was announced. It was my understanding that Mr. Harper's company obtained licensing rights from the author and the movie company. The trigger for the licensing is the name Polar Express, TM (gotta be careful, you know) and reading the story on the train. To avoid these licensing fees you would have to call the event something else and not read the story on the train. Perhaps the story could be read to the kids before they got on the train, in the station or possibly a heated rental tent (which should cost less than 30% of the ticket sales).
With the licensing aggreement, Mr. Harper's company would provide marketing materials. Now, if they provided PM 1225 for the event, that would be a different story!
FYI - Mr. Harper's company has also licensed the book: "The Little Engine That Could" TM, that includes marketing materials, a locomotive replica to run at the head of the train, and a person in a clown suit and/or a person in an elephant suit (from the storybook). They already had one outing with this train and said they had good success with it. I think they ran it at the Great Smokey Mountains Railroad.