Alamo up in arms over new unofficial app

The new app Experience Real History: Alamo Edition by San Antonio company Alamo Reality offers augmented reality features and other content about the historic landmark. The Alamo said the app is an unauthorized commercial product and has retained a law firm. less The new app Experience Real History: Alamo Edition by San Antonio company Alamo Reality offers augmented reality features and other content about the historic landmark. The Alamo said the app is an unauthorized ... more Photo: App Screenshot Photo: App Screenshot Image 1 of / 50 Caption Close Alamo up in arms over new unofficial app 1 / 50 Back to Gallery

Call it the battle of the unofficial Alamo app. The keepers of the historic shrine have taken up legal arms against the makers of Experience Real History: Alamo Edition, a new augmented reality app that transports users to the Alamo compound as it appeared in 1836.

Alamo CEO Douglass McDonald said that not only is the app not endorsed by the Alamo or the Texas General Land Office, which oversees the San Antonio landmark, it also is an unauthorized commercial product that conducts commercial activities while on the Alamo grounds.

“We are going to pursue all available options to stop them” said McDonald, who noted that the General Land Office has referred the matter to its intellectual property counsel, Austin-based law firm Pirkey Barber.

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But Alamo Reality, the San Antonio company behind the app, defends its creation. CEO Lane Traylor said the company doesn’t need a license to share the history of the Alamo because it’s “the people’s story” and that the app’s content can be viewed in classrooms, living rooms and just about anywhere else as well as at the Alamo.

Alamo Reality launched the app Tuesday on Alamo Plaza after almost a year in development. The app is billed as a historically accurate story of the siege of the Alamo in 1836, and it features “photoreal 3D technology” and audio stories, along with biographies of William Travis, Santa Anna and other historic Alamo figures.

The app is free to download but has premium content that can be accessed for $4.99. The app is available for iOS, with an Android version slated for mid- to late-May.

Traylor noted that the app’s augmented reality scenes can be accessed on or off the Alamo property. Only four of the app’s 14 scenes are free. Seeing the rest requires the $4.99 upgrade.

McDonald noted that Alamo Reality does not have a licensing agreement with the Alamo for the app and did not offer the app’s historical content to the Alamo to review for accuracy.

“The people who know the Alamo the best are the Ph.D. historians who work there every day,” McDonald said. “We’re not saying the history (in the app) is wrong. We asked to review it, and they declined. And they’re giving historical context on the Alamo property that we can’t verify.”

Traylor said Alamo Reality tried to reach a licensing agreement with the Alamo and is not violating any trademarks.

“From the very beginning of this venture, we wanted the Alamo to be involved, and had been pursuing that,” Traylor said. “Up until very recently, about maybe two months ago, we had a nice meeting with both the General Land Office general counsel and Doug McDonald. And the outcome of that meeting was we provided them with a very generous offer to work with them. And it came down to they refused that offer.”

Traylor would not divulge the details of the offer but said it involved giving the Alamo revenue for every Alamo Edition app download. McDonald said that revenue would have been $1 per download for an estimated $5,000 to $6,000 a year.

McDonald also said Alamo Reality wanted signs installed throughout the Alamo property to encourage people to download the app and wanted Alamo Reality merchandise sold in the Alamo store.

“I have done licensing agreements with prior museums I’ve been a part of,” McDonald said. “This was a bad business deal and not in the best interests of the Alamo.”

McDonald stressed that the Alamo and General Land Office take seriously the protection of the registered trademark of the Alamo. In a 2015 case, a federal judge ruled that the state of Texas, which owns the Alamo, also owns the image of the shrine and has grounds to challenge business uses that are likely to cause confusion.

A court order restricted two beer makers, including Alamo Beer of San Antonio, from using images that the General Land Office said infringed the trademark. Under a settlement, Alamo Beer paid an undisclosed fee to become the first commercial recipient of an official license to use the Alamo mark.

Attorney Ted Lee, founding partner of the intellectual property firm Gunn, Lee & Cave in San Antonio, represented Alamo Beer. He said the General Land Office would be taking an overaggressive approach against Alamo Reality in guarding its rights to the Alamo and that similar monuments such as the Statue of Liberty are used all the time in advertising and marketing goods.

“It’s questionable whether or not the General Land Office can assert rights as broad as they’re asserting against the app maker,” Lee said. “If I was betting on the winner, I would bet on the maker of the app if he can afford the lawsuit.”

As for the app’s historical accuracy, Traylor said Alamo Reality used historians who have also worked with the Alamo. For the app, Alamo Reality tapped noted Texas historian Stephen L. Hardin and historical illustrator Gary Zaboly, along with Alamo historian Richard Curilla.

Alamo Reality also worked with James Boddie, who previously worked with the Alamo to design an interactive “digital battlefield” feature on its main website, thealamo.org, which gives online visitors a side-by-side look at the Alamo as it appeared in 1836 and how it looks today. And Zaboly presented his Alamo illustrations at the shrine under its auspices as recently as last month.

The Alamo currently does not have an official app, but McDonald said a future app is part of the interpretative planning process.

In addition to its online digital battlefield feature, the Alamo offers audio tour “wands” that can be rented for 45 minutes of Alamo history with sound effects, music and interviews, available in English, Spanish, French, German and Japanese for $7 per person and $5 for military.

Wands vs. apps: It’s an Alamo battle for the 21st century.

René A. Guzman is a San Antonio Express-News staff writer. Read more of his stories here. | rguzman@express-news.net | @reneguz