"Dan Merkel" , In a message on Tue, 15 Mar 2005 15:59:11 -0500, wrote :
"M> "Robert Heller" wrote in message "M> news:10390$42372f13$cb248f0$ snipped-for-privacy@nf1.news-service.com... "M> > It is all a function of the Intellectual Property lawyers justifying "M> > their existence, coupled by plain silliness on the part of the "M> > Marketing Department. Unfortunately for us modelers, this is all too "M> > typical of these businesses. "M> "M> Agreed, but they sell and/or license other McDonald's stuff all of the time. "M> For some reason, there seems to be an unnatural fear of model railroaders! "M> After all, we are harmless little creatures who live in our own 1/87th (or "M> whatever scale you model) world!
It is probably not so much fear as non-understanding. Selling a Ronald McDonald toy to a parent for his/her child insures that that child will
*insist* on revisiting the source of the toy, which relates to future sales of BigMacs and 'Fries -- this is good for McDonald's future bottom line, making the Marketing Department very, very happy. Also the child will play with the toy with his/her friends and
*they* will want one too, which means additional trips to McDonald's. Ditto with McDonald's T-shirts, ball caps, etc. Selling a "model McDonald's restaurant" to some 'strange' older person, so that this 'strange' older person can plant it on a sheet of building insulation (down in some basement somewhere) and then glue down little plastic people next to it does not mean that this strange person will come back every week for a BigMac or something. It means that he will 'imagine' that his little plastic people will be ordering imaginary BigMacs. These imaginary people with their imaginary BigMacs don't do McDonald's bottom line much good (which is what the Marketing Department is interested in) and depending on what this 'strange' person plants elsewhere on his model train layout might or might not give McDonald's a bad name or something (this might upset the Intellectual Property lawyers). Even worse, this strange person might do something totally strange like take a razor saw to the restaurant so it could be fit in some odd location (eg kit-bashing). He might cut off the 1/87 scale Ronald McDonald off the model -- model railroaders often 'alter' the kits they buy for various reasons.
Basically, the Marketing Department (and the Intellectual Property lawyers) lose *control* of the model once sold. Also, since the model is likely to be displayed to some portion of the public and since model will be in a context of the *modeler's* choice (not McDonald's), there are all sorts of issues which would probably give both the Marketing Department and the Intellectual Property lawyers serious nightmares...
I know it is only a model and the Marketing Department and the Intellectual Property lawyers should get over it, but that is not something we as modelers have much control over.
"M> "M> dlm "M> "M> "M>
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