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Consider, though, that the extremes to which UP is going (whether this specific case is urban legend or not) are brought about by our tort liability judicial system's vulnerability to frivolous lawsuits. I highly doubt that UP is seeking to find a way to license their image and make money off of it- railroads don't do this, they operate the other way around, where their advertised image attracts business to their rails and loads to their trains. The clamp-down on corporate logos and images is anti-advertising, so I suspect that the root of the problem must be with some type of perceived exposure to liability. I'm not sure how it would work, but maybe the thinking is that if a train in a movie (look at the trailers for the movie "Torque" where a motorcycle jumps in front of an E-unit) exhibits their logo while unsafe practices are occuring, then it constitutes an endorsement by the company (UP) of those unsafe practices. Some knucklehead attempts the stunt, gets creamed, then sues UP for endorsing the activity. Similar thing could happen with their logo used in a published work, where UP has no control over the content; someone might claim that statements in the book represent those of UP. But of course, common sense screams out loudly against such stupidity; the point is that our legal system permits anyone to try and argue any lame thing they want, and with UP the settlement stakes can be substantial enough to merit an attempt, even if the legal argument is guaranteed to fail. <br /> <br />I just hope that UP will find a way to permit usage of their logo, perhaps with boilerplate disclaimers. I don't think they are solely to blame, with all the cries of corporate greed. It's greed, yes, but not on UP's part.
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