Are fraudulent companies opening the way?

[astral brick]

It would be too easy to dismiss these companies as being thieves who get away with it due to their skills to make business in a grey zone. Of course, they produce subpar bricks and they sell clones of official sets. But it is the ripoff of mocs the most vile way to make a profit, because it takes advantage of non-professional designers who can't afford the costs or the stress of a legal action. These companies are offering customers what Lego can't or don't want to produce, such as a military theme or sets based on anime, movies or tv series addressed to mature audiences or whose ip rights are already legally owned by other companies. Moreover they are selling many connoisseurs mocs, such as gbc, microscale, kinetic sculptures.

Basically, in their dishonest behaviours, they are filling a gap. In fact what is the barrier preventing many afols from building that moc that they would love to own? Not the price of instructions but the cost, the time and the effort to gather the needed parts. These dodgy entrepreneurs understood it and they give customers an easy and cheap solution, because if there is a supply it means that there is a demand. Obviously we are not talking of mass-scale, but the amount is enough to justify the theft of designs and the production of the crap copies of the pieces.

I wonder what Lego is waiting for, why aren't they offering an equivalent of a print on demand service for parts? Lego could increase their incomes, designers would not be robbed anymore and afols would finally build their craved mocs or dream vintage sets using original brand new parts. The downside would be the disappearance of the second-hand market, which is already indirectly controlled by Lego.

Perhaps crooks are simply ahead of their time.

[legotownlinz]

4 hours ago, astral brick said:

I wonder what Lego is waiting for, why aren't they offering an equivalent of a print on demand service for parts? Lego could increase their incomes, designers would not be robbed anymore and afols would finally build their craved mocs or dream vintage sets using original brand new parts.

I also wish Lego would make it easy to buy parts for MOCs. But offering such a service at a large scale and with acceptable pricing requires to automate the whole process and to always have a large stable set of available parts in stock that MOC designers can rely on.  

[Aanchir]

5 hours ago, astral brick said:

It would be too easy to dismiss these companies as being thieves who get away with it due to their skills to make business in a grey zone. Of course, they produce subpar bricks and they sell clones of official sets. But it is the ripoff of mocs the most vile way to make a profit, because it takes advantage of non-professional designers who can't afford the costs or the stress of a legal action. These companies are offering customers what Lego can't or don't want to produce, such as a military theme or sets based on anime, movies or tv series addressed to mature audiences or whose ip rights are already legally owned by other companies. Moreover they are selling many connoisseurs mocs, such as gbc, microscale, kinetic sculptures. 

Basically, in their dishonest behaviours, they are filling a gap. In fact what is the barrier preventing many afols from building that moc that they would love to own? Not the price of instructions but the cost, the time and the effort to gather the needed parts. These dodgy entrepreneurs understood it and they give customers an easy and cheap solution, because if there is a supply it means that there is a demand. Obviously we are not talking of mass-scale, but the amount is enough to justify the theft of designs and the production of the crap copies of the pieces.

I wonder what Lego is waiting for, why aren't they offering an equivalent of a print on demand service for parts? Lego could increase their incomes, designers would not be robbed anymore and afols would finally build their craved mocs or dream vintage sets using original brand new parts. The downside would be the disappearance of the second-hand market, which is already indirectly controlled by Lego.

Perhaps crooks are simply ahead of their time.

There's a lot of comments I want to make here but I'm gonna try and break it down into a bulleted list so it doesn't drag on:

• While knock-offs do sometimes include products that TLG does not produce, they are rarely the core of those companies' business. Most of the time, a lot of the products these companies produce are copies of sets and figures from popular LEGO themes.
  
  Also, companies that really cared about delivering the sorts of products you mention that LEGO doesn't manufacture could easily do so WITHOUT infringing on anybody else's patents or trademarks. After all, many brands like Mega Bloks/ Mega Construx, Best-Lock, K'nex, Sluban, and Cobi seem to manage this. So "filling a gap" doesn't really validate any of the crooked business practices that set shadier knock-off brands apart from legitimate building toy companies.
   
• "The equivalent of a print on demand service for parts" would unfortunately not be economical for LEGO, nor even for their most unscrupulous competitors! After all, the only reason injection-molded plastic parts are affordable in the first place is economies of scale.
  
  In LEGO's case, they typically produces hundreds of thousands of any particular element that they need. So each individual copy of the element in question only has to cover a tiny fraction expenses like changing out the molds in each molding machine, cleaning out leftover plastic or dye between batches, adjusting the molding temperature for the material being used, etc. Whereas if LEGO had to produce an "on-demand" batch of just 100 of a particular element, then all of those costs would get passed onto that one buyer.
  
  It's possible that in the future this sort of thing might be possible via 3D printing, which doesn't tend to entail nearly such high overhead costs and can be automated on more of an order-per-order basis. But currently that sort of service can't achieve the precise results that LEGO expects for their products, and it will probably never match the sheer efficiency that keeps mass-produced, injection-molded components so much more affordable.
   
• Even if LEGO did fill all of these gaps in what they offer, it would not stop other companies from producing these sort of knock-offs. Because the cost of copying/reverse engineering a product somebody else already came up with will ALWAYS be less expensive than what it cost them to come up with that design in the first place. And most of the business model of counterfeit products is driven by how affordable they are, not on whether or not a legitimate equivalent exists.
   

18 minutes ago, legotownlinz said:

I also wish Lego would make it easy to buy parts for MOCs. But offering such a service at a large scale and with acceptable pricing requires to automate the whole process and to always have a large stable set of available parts in stock that MOC designers can rely on.  

This is another option for on-demand ordering, but that's pretty much what LEGO already tries to offer in the form of Pick-A-Brick (both the online and in-store versions).

I recognize the selection of parts available from Pick-A-Brick is inadequate for many of our needs. But usually when LEGO has tried adding more specific parts to Pick-A-Brick, very few people actually ended up buying them. So without some kind of clairvoyance (or at least, some kind of extraordinarily good predictive algorithm) to anticipate exactly how much of each part there will be demand for, this sort of preemptive approach will never be able to satisfy all of our particular demands.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Aanchir

[makoy]

5 hours ago, astral brick said:

I wonder what Lego is waiting for, why aren't they offering an equivalent of a print on demand service for parts?

There used to be a similar service from LEGO between 2005 to 2012,  called LEGO Factory / LEGO Design byME.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120121014823/http://designbyme.lego.com/en-GB/news/default.aspx?id=360700

For whatever reasons TLG is claiming, the program failed because they could not keep up with the "quality standards" ... and not about supply or cost overhead. 

There are many other reasons why such program cannot be sustainable if managed centrally by TLG. If you read the terms of service in Bricklink, the designs and licensing is not as easy to manage as you would expect, as MOCs sold in Bricklink must be vetted and reviewed, and infringing designs will be removed without notice as those could pose legal problems to TLG as well. 

This is likely the reason why until now there is no equivalent program that replaces LEGO Factory.  

 

[KotZ]

51 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

"The equivalent of a print on demand service for parts" would unfortunately not be economical for LEGO, nor even for their most unscrupulous competitors! After all, the only reason injection-molded plastic parts are affordable in the first place is economies of scale.

In LEGO's case, they typically produces hundreds of thousands of any particular element that they need. So each individual copy of the element in question only has to cover a tiny fraction expenses like changing out the molds in each molding machine, cleaning out leftover plastic or dye between batches, adjusting the molding temperature for the material being used, etc. Whereas if LEGO had to produce an "on-demand" batch of just 100 of a particular element, then all of those costs would get passed onto that one buyer.

Adding onto this because I have second hand knowledge of this. It takes a long time to switch out the molds. I want to say what I heard was their fast, most efficient people would still take up to 20-30 minutes to switch out a mold from one mold to another. So yeah, it's just not economical to do rare pieces people won't buy in big quantities.

[koalayummies]

Lots of great responses so far.

Here's two videos of how the Lego factories work and the crazy logistical challenges they face. If you haven't seen these I recommend watching the entire 3-part series from the beginning. This is the making a new Lego set documentary so they go all over and it'll skip around through the entire design-to-retail process but the factory floor segments showing the assimilation of all the pieces into boxed sets is what's relevant here:

The very end of this video (this is part 2 BTW):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN3BVWHrPWw

And continuing into this video (part 3):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kw-YTF4JSM

The reason I bring this up is that's just the set-making side. Putting together product of which they know the contents of each 'order' and the robots can work as efficiently as possible picking out all the hundreds or thousands of pieces each set requires, for the hundreds of different sets available at any given time. Even with a finite number of sets and thus different pieces required its still incredibly complex and there are limitations on production. Any of the companies in question can only produce so many different sets at any time. 

Custom orders on the other hand become significantly more difficult and time consuming.

The closest thing to what you're talking about with a 'print on demand' service that Lego currently offers is Bricks and Pieces, a special-order parts service where one can choose specific pieces they want and build a custom order of parts. You can download a shared LDD file or have a list of parts for an MOC or buy someones instructions on ebay and enter the pieces you need on B&P. That's as easy as it currently gets (or doing the same thing on Bricklink). I'm not aware of any of the knockoff companies offering a special order parts service.

The discontinued service that Makoy pointed out and the possible reasons for its discontinuation, along with everything else mentioned here so far by everyone are very likely as to why this idea hasn't gone any further than being able to special order parts.

[MAB]

I cannot see LEGO ever doing the DesignByME service again. Too many people would want to do licensed MOCs through it (just look at IDEAS submissions), and LEGO cannot be seen to do this. LEGO has to be careful on Bricklink concerning the selling of licensed MOCs, and does not allow, for example, Star Wars MOCs to be downloadable.

 

As to the ripping of MOC designers, yes it is wrong to take someone else's MOC and commercialise it. But I wonder what the designer is really losing. It is not huge sums of money. And what about the other way around. Many MOC designers feel it is allowable for them to rip off other companies' intellectual property and try to make money based on selling instructions, even though they have no agreement with the company. When this is just as wrong as a clone company ripping off their designs. Anyone selling Star Wars MOC plans, for example, is profiting from Lucasfilm/Disney IP without paying a license fee.

[nerdsforprez]

Agree with others there is a lot to unpack here.  Without condoning the behavior of these pirating companies, I will say that I think change is in the air and if TLG does not evolve or adapt some if its policies, it may lose a fair share of the market it holds. 

And I am not sure the whole high and mighty absolutist perspective of Lego absolute ownership over plastic bricks holds now, and certainly not until the end of time.  Interpretation: a free market would eventually stumble upon something so similar INDEPENDENT of Lego that I don't think they can claim ownership over the idea of plastic bricks from now until forever.  An alternative perspective may be that pirating companies are just ahead of their time.  Even pharmaceutical patients run our after a decade or so.  And these pirating companies  are demonstrating that is can be done soooo much cheaper.  Perhaps not at the same quality, but there are some really good clone products out there. 

[ArneNielsen]

9 minutes ago, nerdsforprez said:

I don't think they can claim ownership over the idea of plastic bricks from now until forever.

They cant, and they dont - and thats why companies like MegaBloks/MegaConstrux and the other companies Aanchir mentioned are able to legally make bricks. 

All patents are time-limited, and the basic bricks have long since expired thier protection date. A lot of the newer bricks though are still under patent protection. 

[nerdsforprez]

Yes, where the pirating companies loose me is not in the copying of the brick, but in the pirating of the actual sets themselves. 

[astral brick]

17 hours ago, Aanchir said:

It's possible that in the future this sort of thing might be possible via 3D printing,

Probably, in the near (?) future, affordable 3d printing with a decent quality will cut the head off the snake. 

17 hours ago, Aanchir said:

• Even if LEGO did fill all of these gaps in what they offer, it would not stop other companies from producing these sort of knock-offs.

True, but at least there will be a legal alternative. A similar reasoning applies to pirated content.

17 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I recognize the selection of parts available from Pick-A-Brick is inadequate for many of our needs.

Let's say, without euphemisms, it is embarrassing.

[Aanchir]

7 hours ago, ArneNielsen said:

They cant, and they dont - and thats why companies like MegaBloks/MegaConstrux and the other companies Aanchir mentioned are able to legally make bricks. 

All patents are time-limited, and the basic bricks have long since expired thier protection date. A lot of the newer bricks though are still under patent protection. 

Exactly! What separates outright counterfeiters from legitimate LEGO-compatible buildng toy brands like Mega Construx, Cobi, etc, is that counterfeiters copy actual builds and graphic designs, copyright-protected characters, trademarked brands, and/or parts with patents that haven't yet expired (for example, "Spinjitzu Slam" and "Airjitzu" launchers, the roller coaster system, LEGO Juniors interlocking base plates, "super jumpers", stud shooters, the character and creature building system, the updated Technic gear shift elements, etc.)

And this is what makes counterfeiting especially galling for me — the fact that if these companies weren't so committed to cutting corners by ripping off other people's designs, they COULD potentially establish themselves as legitimate competitors in the construction toys market and create products with actual originality. One company that used to make actual counterfeit products, Enlighten Bricks, has at least started to move in a more legitimate direction by coming up with their own builds and IPs (though some of the parts they use may or may not hold up to a legal challenge).

But instead, most counterfeiters have seemingly decided that it's more profitable to just copy other people's hard work without paying for it than to actually hire more designers of their own.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Aanchir

[astral brick]

7 hours ago, MAB said:

Many MOC designers feel it is allowable for them to rip off other companies' intellectual property and try to make money based on selling instructions, even though they have no agreement with the company. When this is just as wrong as a clone company ripping off their designs.

Interesting point of view.

7 hours ago, nerdsforprez said:

An alternative perspective may be that pirating companies are just ahead of their time.  Even pharmaceutical patients run our after a decade or so.  And these pirating companies  are demonstrating that is can be done soooo much cheaper.  Perhaps not at the same quality, but there are some really good clone products out there. 

Aside the cost aspect - kind of obvious since they steal designs and produce poor quality bricks - when I said that these companies could be considered, in a certain way, pioneers, I was thinking about the fact that they are equating official sets and mocs.

 

[Mylenium]

On 11/9/2020 at 8:25 PM, astral brick said:

I wonder what Lego is waiting for, why aren't they offering an equivalent of a print on demand service for parts?

Aside from the cost factor the others already mentioned, this is simply yet again another case of the AFOL bubble reflecting in on itself. You know, it's perhaps three percent who even are aware of brick CAD tools, graphics programs and so on to be able to create those custom sets, but of those only yet another fraction would actually be interested in doing it. It's just not relevant to their business in the bigger picture, especially now that they are far beyond being a reasonably small company and have many ways to make money much easier.

Mylenium

On 11/9/2020 at 8:25 PM, astral brick said:

afols would finally build their craved mocs or dream vintage sets using original brand new parts.

A lot of that could already be mitigated if LEGO were actually producing parts consistently in sufficient quantities instead of once every blue moon manufacturing a handful of seldom used pieces in a rare color which you can't then even order on Pick a Brick/ Bricks & Pieces because supplies are so thin. This also opens up the old can of worms of e.g. the Classic sets not serving their function as bulk brick sources and similar discussions. If people had easier ways of obtaining the materials to easily rebrick their models you could kill half the counterfeiters and on top of it fix some of the craziness on the secondary markets for LEGO sets and parts...

Mylenium

[Mylenium]

19 hours ago, Aanchir said:

It's possible that in the future this sort of thing might be possible via 3D printing, which doesn't tend to entail nearly such high overhead costs and can be automated on more of an order-per-order basis.

I can't see any way how this would ever become a reality. The cost you save on the sorting and logistics is easily eaten up by actual production cost for the resins, long printing times and cleanup. It's hard to imagine even a set with a mere hundred bricks being produced on order this way.

Mylenium

[Aanchir]

Just now, Mylenium said:

I can't see any way how this would ever become a reality. The cost you save on the sorting and logistics is easily eaten up by actual production cost for the resins, long printing times and cleanup. It's hard to imagine even a set with a mere hundred bricks being produced on order this way. 

Mylenium

Oh yeah, it'd definitely never be a viable option for entire sets. But LEGO's definitely been paying very close attention to developments in that sort of technology, and I suspect LEGO could one day find some sort of consumer-targeted application for it. Like how they have been testing a "Minifigure Factory" kiosk at the LEGO House and certain LEGO stores which uses a UV printer to apply custom graphics to minifig torsos on demand.

Obviously, 3D printer technology's still a long way from being ready for any sort of service like that, but who knows what the future might hold?

[MAB]

3 hours ago, astral brick said:

Interesting point of view

 

Why interesting? If it is OK for an individual to use a company's IP for their own financial gain without any royalties, then surely it is OK for another company to do the same. So for example, if Any Joe can profit off Star Wars then why can't the next Lepin? After all, by selling items, the individual is doing it for financial gain just like the company is. And if they can profit off Star Wars, then why not profit off LEGO's IP too, or indeed the designs of Any Joe. A small guy stealing is not really any different to a big company stealing, the only difference is scale.

1 hour ago, Aanchir said:

 

Obviously, 3D printer technology's still a long way from being ready for any sort of service like that, but who knows what the future might hold?

Holographic virtual models, with a monthly subscription where you can build and display any LEGO sets you like and MOC with unlimited parts or you can buy the set to keep the parts in your collection. So LDD with holograms, but paid for.

[koalayummies]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

Holographic virtual models...

Mind uploading to the Lego Matrix. The minifigure is your residual self image, the mental projection of your digital self.

What do you need?

Bricks. Lots of bricks.

[Mylenium]

9 hours ago, MAB said:

So for example, if Any Joe can profit off Star Wars then why can't the next Lepin?

Bad example. As much as Disney are control freaks of their Star Wars IP, it still falls under the "(George) Lucas code", making almost any fan art or other derivative use fair game (fair use) and to the specific case of MOCs you also have to add on top that the MOC itself is a new piece of art falling under its own regulations. And the latter extends to other properties as well. No point in trying to take a RIAA stance here and trying to squeeze licensing fees out of everything. Some uses of other people's IP are perfectly legal within certain limits, with the specifics being determined by the respective local laws.

Mylenium

[Peppermint_M]

21 hours ago, nerdsforprez said:

I am not sure the whole high and mighty absolutist perspective of Lego absolute ownership over plastic bricks holds now, and certainly not until the end of time. 

21 hours ago, ArneNielsen said:

They cant, and they dont - and thats why companies like MegaBloks/MegaConstrux and the other companies Aanchir mentioned are able to legally make bricks. 

All patents are time-limited, and the basic bricks have long since expired thier protection date. A lot of the newer bricks though are still under patent protection. 

 

Indeed, the only thing that maintains this absolutist perspective is fandom and snobbery. 

What Tyco bricks I own have held up a thousand times better than the LEGO of the era (from the same, just as played with lot of parts) Mega et al have improved leaps and bounds since they started out. 

"Purists" are preventing any integration, and they maintain a gateway to entry that excludes anything that is not a plastic brick marked LEGO...

(I am a brick anarchist!!) 

 

[Mylenium]

44 minutes ago, Peppermint_M said:

"Purists" are preventing any integration, and they maintain a gateway to entry that excludes anything that is not a plastic brick marked LEGO...

Are they, though? I feel many of those alternate companies have genuine structural problems to actually make a dent. That's one of my eternal frustrations with Mega for instance and lately it seems Cobi are also in trouble with not being able to keep up with demand. And the other side is of course that the companies are playing silly games over patents/ trademarks. If LEGO even offered such a thing as FRAND licensing or there was an overarching coalition/ association that maintained brick designs and quality standards like it is common in some industries, we'd live in a whole different world...

Mylenium

[Peppermint_M]

11 minutes ago, Mylenium said:

Are they, though? I feel many of those alternate companies have genuine structural problems to actually make a dent. That's one of my eternal frustrations with Mega for instance and lately it seems Cobi are also in trouble with not being able to keep up with demand. 

Are we talking structural issues with bricks or the design of sets?

Most Mega sets I encountered of late have been rather decent quality parts. 

Right now, I can think of at least four threads on this forum of MOCs that used LEGO and other brands or were fully generic brick. These were lambasted, reported to staff and generally hounded by "purist" fans. Of course, this is a forum for LEGO fans, but it illustrates the gatekeeping.

 

 

[MAB]

3 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Bad example. As much as Disney are control freaks of their Star Wars IP, it still falls under the "(George) Lucas code", making almost any fan art or other derivative use fair game (fair use) and to the specific case of MOCs you also have to add on top that the MOC itself is a new piece of art falling under its own regulations. And the latter extends to other properties as well. No point in trying to take a RIAA stance here and trying to squeeze licensing fees out of everything. Some uses of other people's IP are perfectly legal within certain limits, with the specifics being determined by the respective local laws.

Mylenium

People creating Star Wars MOCs are fine. People selling Star Wars MOCs are not creating fan art. They are creating a product to sell. There is a difference.

[Mylenium]

5 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Are we talking structural issues with bricks or the design of sets?

I mean at the corporate level, in particular manufacturing and  distribution. The sets themselves are fine. It has just become nigh on possible to even get your hands on many of them. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Mylenium

5 hours ago, MAB said:

People creating Star Wars MOCs are fine. People selling Star Wars MOCs are not creating fan art. They are creating a product to sell. There is a difference.

The aforementioned "Lucas code" allows you to recoup any cost associated with furthering your fan project and most MOCs arguably have some of that going on like that Dutch guy that's selling thick printed booklets for his "UCS" models. All fair and square in my understanding. Of course it might be different for other properties, and technically it definitely is, but so far most rights holders seem pretty easy-going about it as long as it's in their interest and furthers their products and brands. And why not? A multi billion corporation is not going to go broke on such stuff. Just the opposite - coming down hard on your fans can damage your reputation a lot more. Again, it may not be as written in the letter of the law, but I don't think a bit of a laissez-faire attitude within certain limits hurts anyone.

Mylenium

[koalayummies]

7 hours ago, Peppermint_M said:

Right now, I can think of at least four threads on this forum of MOCs that used LEGO and other brands or were fully generic brick. These were lambasted, reported to staff and generally hounded by "purist" fans. Of course, this is a forum for LEGO fans, but it illustrates the gatekeeping.

Ugh. Last time I saw that going down here was 5 years ago; dude was building 26-foot long scale models of battleships and the thread spiraled. Unbelievable. What I don't get is how the heck anyone can tell, are they taking magnifying glasses to the photos?