Bricks and Minifigs Situation...

[anothergol]

17 hours ago, TeddytheSpoon said:

I got the same feeling from the few videos of his I watched (I found the style and use of Gen-AI images rather grating). It's good that he's drawn attention to B&M's malpractice, but some of the stunts he's pulled are downright stupid from a legal point of view. Two wrongs don't make a right...

Some of his stunts are just jokes that for some reason some people manage to take seriously. Like, "she signed a contract stating that she can't call the police on me". That's an obvious joke. And it's also not more "illegal" than getting someone to sign a "I sell you my soul" contract. It just has zero legal value, and that's pretty much it. It's not like he tried to enforce it, or it's any enforceable.

Some of his stunts, like the lottery or the small claims split, might be ones he did seriously. But it's ok because he's kinda a likable idiot, he's a Napoleon Dynamite. And stupid doesn't mean wrong. If he knew the risks, then it was stupid but he took those risks and IMHO it was well worth it. If he didn't know, that just makes him naive, still not a villain.
And yeah he possibly put some of his teammates in "danger", but they're all adults, and I don't think he tricked them.

I think he did a pretty good job and gave us one of the most, if not the most entertaining stories since the internet (even though it's a whole and the villains are part of it). He also exposed what needed to be. 
Whatever he did, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. And had it followed the legal route, then there would be no story (bad guys might have won, bad cops would have continued their business, and you wouldn't have heard of any of it). It's even quite possible that all of the bad actors are still gonna -legally- win. But morally & from all other angles, they've already lost.

Edited Sunday at 04:47 AM by anothergol

[Mylenium]

6 hours ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

Well if you watched the video you would see the whole reason they didn't go to court is because Bricks and Minifigs on a phone call said (paraphrasing) "if you bring this to court, we are gonna drag it out until it cost you more than the Lego collection itself."

Just for the record: That is witness tampering and intimidation that could be legally pursued and potentially could weaken BaM's case. Entire arguments could be dismissed because they have been discussed ex curia and BaM could be issued massive fines for their misconduct.

Mylenium

[JesseNight]

12 hours ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

His B&M videos are some of the best I've seen on YouTube in a long time. Not watching it because of an AI thumbnail is extremely petty.

The videos are entertaining for sure, and that's probably the main purpose if he makes them as a main income. I'm not doubting that he wants to help the family, but I'm skeptical judging solely from the pov shown to us by an entertainer.

Free legal advice is indeed not a lawyer, but it's a base to start from. And they most certainly won't tell him to do the things he did in his videos, that's to provide entertainment for the viewer. Also a lot of people have already reacted to his videos since the first one, offering help and legal advice. I cannot judge the entire situation, but once again it would have been a good place to start. Proper legal cases don't have as much entertainment value though...
 

12 hours ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

Well if you watched the video you would see the whole reason they didn't go to court is because Bricks and Minifigs on a phone call said (paraphrasing) "if you bring this to court, we are gonna drag it out until it cost you more than the Lego collection itself."

That's a threat to scare you into not doing it. If you have all the proper evidence, someone into legal advice can probably tell them more on their chances to win, and whether or not to take these threats seriously.
 

15 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

...And no, I'm not watching his videos. As others have said - he's grating and AI stuff is not something I enjoy, so I'm avoiding it like the plague.

I feel you on the AI dislike. It's hard to completely dismiss these days, I'm betting everything we do or buy has had at least some AI involvement, even without us noticing. And that's only gonna get worse. Once again I feel ya and I don't like it either, just be careful not to deny yourself too much when the world reaches the point of everything being AI controlled.
 

7 hours ago, anothergol said:

Some of his stunts are just jokes that for some reason some people manage to take seriously. Like, "she signed a contract stating that she can't call the police on me". That's an obvious joke. And it's also not more "illegal" than getting someone to sign a "I sell you my soul" contract. It just has zero legal value, and that's pretty much it. It's not like he tried to enforce it, or it's any enforceable.

I think it has legal value, but not in his favor. I very much doubt it is legal to trick people into signing something, even if it is their own responsibility to read what they sign. If he's really doing that as a joke (but he seemed to take it pretty seriously himself in the videos), it isn't helping the family who lost their Lego and only adding up to B&M's harassment complaints against him. Should definitely stop feeding them more things they can use against them.

Edited Sunday at 12:20 PM by JesseNight

[Darth_Bane13]

12 hours ago, anothergol said:

Whatever he did, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. And had it followed the legal route, then there would be no story (bad guys might have won, bad cops would have continued their business, and you wouldn't have heard of any of it). It's even quite possible that all of the bad actors are still gonna -legally- win. But morally & from all other angles, they've already lost.

Yup, not to mention the GoFundMe for Bryan Mansell has reached over $400,000. That wouldn't have happened without the videos.

5 hours ago, JesseNight said:

That's a threat to scare you into not doing it. If you have all the proper evidence, someone into legal advice can probably tell them more on their chances to win, and whether or not to take these threats seriously.

If Bryan Mansell fought it out in court, it would likely cost them more than the Lego.

[danth]

There is a Techdirt article on this that explains how, in US civil law, there is a "dead zone" when you're suing for around $200,000. It's too much money to sue in small claims court, but not enough to make it worth hiring lawyers. 

https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/02/everyone-in-this-lego-dispute-should-have-spoken-to-a-lawyer-earlier-than-they-did/

Quote

The deeper structural problem here — one that Leonard French articulates better than I can — is that the US legal system has a genuine dead zone around mid-five-figure disputes. Too big for small claims (even with Schneider’s claim splitting exploit), too small to justify the cost of a full civil suit, it’s exactly the range where a well-resourced defendant can make a calculated bet that the other side will run out of money or patience before getting justice. That’s a feature of the system Bricks & Minifigs happened to exploit, but is not unique to them.

 

[TeddytheSpoon]

 

17 hours ago, JesseNight said:

I feel you on the AI dislike. It's hard to completely dismiss these days, I'm betting everything we do or buy has had at least some AI involvement, even without us noticing. And that's only gonna get worse. Once again I feel ya and I don't like it either, just be careful not to deny yourself too much when the world reaches the point of everything being AI controlled.

Without wanting to derail things too much, I doubt everything being Gen-AI-ridden is happening any time in the near future given the tech's fundamental flaws and precarious financial position. There are still plenty of creatives out there who make stuff without it. So until then, I'm quite happy to drop the ones who do use it in favour of those who don't!

On 6/7/2026 at 7:44 AM, anothergol said:

Some of his stunts are just jokes that for some reason some people manage to take seriously. Like, "she signed a contract stating that she can't call the police on me". That's an obvious joke. And it's also not more "illegal" than getting someone to sign a "I sell you my soul" contract. It just has zero legal value, and that's pretty much it. It's not like he tried to enforce it, or it's any enforceable.

Some of his stunts, like the lottery or the small claims split, might be ones he did seriously. But it's ok because he's kinda a likable idiot, he's a Napoleon Dynamite. And stupid doesn't mean wrong. If he knew the risks, then it was stupid but he took those risks and IMHO it was well worth it. If he didn't know, that just makes him naive, still not a villain.
And yeah he possibly put some of his teammates in "danger", but they're all adults, and I don't think he tricked them.

I think he did a pretty good job and gave us one of the most, if not the most entertaining stories since the internet (even though it's a whole and the villains are part of it). He also exposed what needed to be. 
Whatever he did, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. And had it followed the legal route, then there would be no story (bad guys might have won, bad cops would have continued their business, and you wouldn't have heard of any of it). It's even quite possible that all of the bad actors are still gonna -legally- win. But morally & from all other angles, they've already lost.

I dunno, I feel like if you get someone to sign something under the pretense it's something else, that's a bit dodgy, regardless of whether it's enforceable or not. If nothing else it probably won't help his case if/when it ends up in front of a judge or jury...

It's good that it's out in the open now, no question. And all I'll say is Ben's videos are not for me, I won't tell people not to enjoy it! It's just a shame the system is rigged in such a way that it takes sensationalist content to bring attention to things like this, rather than it being able to be settled through proper channels (not that they existed in this case).

[Mylenium]

34 minutes ago, TeddytheSpoon said:

Without wanting to derail things too much, I doubt everything being Gen-AI-ridden is happening any time in the near future given the tech's fundamental flaws and precarious financial position. There are still plenty of creatives out there who make stuff without it. So until then, I'm quite happy to drop the ones who do use it in favour of those who don't!

Depends on where you're looking. AI is for instance eating Adobe's lunch. Nobody is going to sit there spending hours and days creating web banners or online ad videos in Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere for a lot of money when you just can type in a prompt and pay a fraction of the cost. This shift is already happening. I would agree that the days of when everyone could create their AI memes for free are perhaps over, but it's definitely not going away when paying for it has always been part of the plan.

Mylenium

[JesseNight]

5 hours ago, TeddytheSpoon said:

I dunno, I feel like if you get someone to sign something under the pretense it's something else, that's a bit dodgy, regardless of whether it's enforceable or not.

I think that it might border on fraud tbh, not sure how US law would deal with that.
 

5 hours ago, TeddytheSpoon said:

It's just a shame the system is rigged in such a way that it takes sensationalist content to bring attention to things like this, rather than it being able to be settled through proper channels (not that they existed in this case).

Totally agree. That's honestly not even new, before the internet days we were just less likely to hear about such cases unless it made it to a television show, which obviously had a smaller chance of happening than it does today with so many Youtube creators.
 

5 hours ago, TeddytheSpoon said:

Without wanting to derail things too much, I doubt everything being Gen-AI-ridden is happening any time in the near future given the tech's fundamental flaws and precarious financial position. There are still plenty of creatives out there who make stuff without it. So until then, I'm quite happy to drop the ones who do use it in favour of those who don't!

I don't expect people to reject it, I just wish it would be used as a tool rather than a replacement. So many people losing jobs over it. And any creative stuff that once required talent and practice is no longer something special to be appreciated, when everyone with access to AI can do it.
 

5 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Nobody is going to sit there spending hours and days creating web banners or online ad videos in Photoshop,

I still do. I have 30 years photo editing experience of which 25 years in Adobe Photoshop. However it is indeed true that I mostly just use it for myself, because others hardly need or even still appreciate it.
Your point of the high cost of the package makes sense of course (but wasn't a factor for me bc still using an old version that I got from work and that's still good enough for my needs).
 

5 hours ago, Mylenium said:

I would agree that the days of when everyone could create their AI memes for free are perhaps over, but it's definitely not going away when paying for it has always been part of the plan.

Pretty much how it always works. Offer something for free, reel people in and get them dependent, then take away the "free".
I remember when Google was new. They did something no other search engine did in the times of dial-up modems: keep it simple (just an empty page with a search field), fast, 100% ad-free, and make it work good. We all know how that turned out when Google was part of everyone's online life, especially the "ad-free" part.
I'm still not dependent of AI myself, still happy not needing any access to it.

[Mylenium]

1 hour ago, JesseNight said:

but wasn't a factor for me bc still using an old version that I got from work and that's still good enough for my needs.

I never installed Creative Cloud, either, even if I got free licenses. ;-) They lost the plot after CS 5, anyway. Too much garbage and hardware acceleration nonsense that never worked reliably.

Mylenium

[JesseNight]

@Mylenium Yeah unfortunately. I had to upgrade to a CC version 21 (2020) for work at some point, but CS (5 or 6 was last one I had before that) was so much better, and above all so much faster, especially starting up.
Still keeping the cloud stuff to an absolute minimum, need my stuff to reliably work offline without internet dependence.

[BrickBob Studpants]

AI-generated thumbnail -> no click from me  Is it petty? Yes. But using AI-generated images when you can easily take a picture yourself or use a better-looking stock image is insulting to me. Reeks of laziness.

Or worse, AI-generated images for social events or restaurant menues. The only thing I think when I see that is either it’s a scam or the real thing looks so horrible they have to resort to AI to cover it up

[Darth_Bane13]

New update 

 

[JesseNight]

22 hours ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

AI-generated thumbnail -> no click from me  Is it petty? Yes. But using AI-generated images when you can easily take a picture yourself or use a better-looking stock image is insulting to me. Reeks of laziness.

Or worse, AI-generated images for social events or restaurant menues. The only thing I think when I see that is either it’s a scam or the real thing looks so horrible they have to resort to AI to cover it up

Not to defend it, but we're already halfway to this becoming the norm. And between a business using it and a business who doesn't, majority will pick the AI generated one simply bc it's more attractive. It knows all the marketing 101 and how to appeal to the average crowd after all. As an image creator myself it insults me too, but the truth is my 30 years experience simply has been replaced by cheaper and faster and easy to use tools that everybody has access to. I feel insulted just as much, but the world moved on beyond needing people like me. Is it laziness? No, just the better business decision.
 

21 hours ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

New update 

From this point on all we got (and what people are making content on now) are assumptions. But there are just things that smell fishy about this whole case... from both sides. For example, why is it that if the GoFundMe gathered so much more money than they were owed, they didn't go straight to a good lawyer with the remainder and get this straight through the proper channels...?

[Darth_Bane13]

3 hours ago, JesseNight said:

For example, why is it that if the GoFundMe gathered so much more money than they were owed, they didn't go straight to a good lawyer with the remainder and get this straight through the proper channels...?

Who's to say they didn't? That's what Reckless Ben said Brian is using the GoFundMe money for now.

[JesseNight]

Missed that bit of information apparently.

[Mylenium]

On 6/9/2026 at 3:42 PM, BrickBob Studpants said:

AI-generated thumbnail -> no click from me  Is it petty? Yes. But using AI-generated images when you can easily take a picture yourself or use a better-looking stock image is insulting to me. Reeks of laziness.

There's no shame in laziness. God only knows how many times I winged my projects with half-baked stuff that could have been better. But there's always a deadline and a budget... My problem with this stuff is that it's outright misleading and well, if people can't even bothered to correct their spelling errors, then I don't know why we even use AI.

On 6/9/2026 at 3:42 PM, BrickBob Studpants said:

Or worse, AI-generated images for social events or restaurant menues. The only thing I think when I see that is either it’s a scam or the real thing looks so horrible they have to resort to AI to cover it up

Well, there was an uproar on Bluesky recently over the event promoter creating an AI poster for a "special interest" (if you know what I mean) event instead of hiring one of the many great artists that are also there and would have gladly done it for reduced rates as a favor to the community. And that is really where things begin to suck. There are a few acceptable uses for generative AI, but clearly this isn't one of them. The poster wasn't even particularly good and looked like every other AI slop thing. That's where I draw the line.

Mylenium

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Mylenium

[JesseNight]

26 minutes ago, Mylenium said:

There's no shame in laziness. God only knows how many times I winged my projects with half-baked stuff that could have been better. But there's always a deadline and a budget... My problem with this stuff is that it's outright misleading and well, if people can't even bothered to correct their spelling errors, then I don't know why we even use AI.

Problem is people become too dependent of it, rather than using it as a tool and properly checking the result. Everything has to be cheap and fast these days, and a lot of people can't even properly spell or do simple maths without technological help.
 

28 minutes ago, Mylenium said:

Well, there was an uproar on Bluesky recently over the event promoter creating an AI poster for a "special interest" (if you know what I mean) event instead of hiring one of the many great artists that are also there and would have gladly done it for reduced rates as a favor to the community. And that is really where things begin to suck. There are a few acceptable uses for generative AI, but clearly this isn't one of them. The poster wasn't even particularly good and looked like every other AI slop thing. That's where I draw the line.

I assume you are a creative creator yourself? People like you and me see these things clearly. But the truth is that most mainstream folks do not notice poor quality on AI content. They don't notice spelling errors. It's made to play with people's emotions and draw them into clicking/buying/whatever, using every trick in the marketing book combined with today's data collection and analyses. There's entire books about how this works.
It pushed me to the point of not even willing to do creative content anymore, I got sick of people preferring AI slop or even thinking my carefully created stuff is AI made. What do talents and hard work still mean when everybody with AI access can do it?

[Trekkie99]