lightningtiger Posted August 23, 2013 Posted August 23, 2013 FanDom and social media isn't a problem with CuuSoo. It's a core element of the platform. CuuSoo is meant to be a crowd sourcing based undertaking. It's bundled into it's very DNA. Cross promoting via other forms of social media is part and parcel. As is leveraging other social media comunities in support of your ideas. True, but I'm talking of projects that have shot to 10K in a matter of days though fan-dom.....point in question Purdue Pete ! Many of those who support just one fan-dom project don't support any others.
kermit Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 (edited) Can`t believe she manipulated her followers to harass the cussoo team with emails and even phone calls to get her back on. What nerve! and she even have the arrogance to say that cussoo wanted her out and she still insists that shes the victim. Just mind boggling. ''nothing wrong with kreo''.....sounds like sour grapes. Edited August 24, 2013 by kermit
Paul Boratko Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 You know... I have watched a lot of delusional wacked out videos on Youtube over the years, and I would have to put this one near the top... My favorite part was "It was my copied idea"... She says this despite the same themed project already existing for over a year before her submission... How people can still back this person truly baffles me... I would love for Tim Courtney or someone else from Cuusoo to come out and lay it all out so that this whole matter can be put to rest(and linked to) and then BrickQueen can head on down to Kre-O town with her peeps...
Sam892 Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 I'm sure that the LEGO team and the CUSSOO team are two seperate parts of LEGO. She keeps blaming this on LEGO but I think LEGO themselves had little to do with this. It's between her and CUSSOO, not her and LEGO. On top of that its extremely unlikely any of her projects would have been made. LEGO already addressed themes they own and like she said Kreo own JP. The other thing thAt bothers me in that video is she acts like they are all exclusively her idea. Many JP and batman projects existed before she came along, and she never created Batman or JP. CUSSOO already made clear the rules on IP that already exists. While its sad to see anyone turn away from LEGO I won't be bothered whatever she decides. It seems that LEGO will be better off without Dramaqueen and her followers harassing them. Plus BrickQueen seems like she would benefit from taking a break from LEGO, maybe give herself time to clear her head.
Paul Boratko Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 I'm sure that the LEGO team and the CUSSOO team are two seperate parts of LEGO. She keeps blaming this on LEGO but I think LEGO themselves had little to do with this. It's between her and CUSSOO, not her and LEGO. On top of that its extremely unlikely any of her projects would have been made. LEGO already addressed themes they own and like she said Kreo own JP. The other thing thAt bothers me in that video is she acts like they are all exclusively her idea. Many JP and batman projects existed before she came along, and she never created Batman or JP. CUSSOO already made clear the rules on IP that already exists. While its sad to see anyone turn away from LEGO I won't be bothered whatever she decides. It seems that LEGO will be better off without Dramaqueen and her followers harassing them. Plus BrickQueen seems like she would benefit from taking a break from LEGO, maybe give herself time to clear her head. Exactly, Lego had nothing to do with any of the drama that she created all by herself(under 18 accounts she said) which resulted in nothing but embarrassment for herself and problems for the people running Cuusoo... I am sure the Kre-O fans will have awesome Youtube videos to look forward to in the future....
Cwetqo Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 I can confirm that TLG is also following this and that, in their words "situation is not optimal for both parties involved". I dont know if anything else will come out of it regarding this specific case, but there might be some new rules or guidelines on CUUSOO (although nothing yet was said about that)
Meatman Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 One of the comments on her new youtube video from some know it all said that she was taken down by the Lego Group because she was getting too big, and that's what big corps do. They take down people that get too big.
Meatman Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 (edited) What is really funny is the 100's and 100's of fans of hers who are claiming that they are never buying another Lego set again. Yeah, Ok. Edited August 24, 2013 by Meatman
jimmynick Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 She's obviously upset at the moment (whether she's right or wrong) but she'll no doubt build with her LEGO again - she'll just present what she builds in a different forum than CUUSOO. And that's good - while her builds were popular on CUUSOO, that's the wrong forum on which to present MOCs. It's the wrong attitude to take that the purpose of building is to submit what you've made as a candidate for production by TLG.
kermit Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 (edited) She claimed that when she called lego they admitted to her how popular she was..........I doubt very much that lego ever heard of her before her fiasco. This is clearly a case of someone whose head has become too big for her shoulders (literally or figuratively or both ...you choose). I always thought that doing reviews on youtube and submitting projects on cussoo was for the joy or building and enlightening and inspiring others about lego and NOT just to become popular and fame. At the beginning of the video she says she will explain everything that happened so the real story will be known but then she reg-nags and say she wouldnt go into details to avoid negative comments and being sued by lego. I guess all this explains ''queen'' in the name. I think she overestimates how many subjects she thinks she has. Edited August 24, 2013 by kermit
Pixelbat Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 Hello folks. New to the site. Actually found these forums because of the Dramaqueen fiasco. Finally a group of rational thinkers that aren't eating up her sob story. I just can't believe how many people are being used and manipulated by her to perpetuate her drama. I think her videos on the issue are so irresponsible. Especially because of all the hate it generated on Cuusoo in the comments of innocent peoples projects. Seno's project was getting death threats. I mean let that sink in a minute... death threats over Lego... Times like this I wonder if us as humans will make it into the next millennium. I feel so bad for the guy. His set looks amazing too... imo much better than Brickqueens. Imagine if some crazy fan actually did follow through with harming someone over this, I think she could be held liable for it. For someone who clams to be "legal secretary by day", you'd think she would be more respectful. If her story was true, which I'm 99% sure it's not, she went about it all the wrong way. A rational person wouldn't have even publically said anything about it until they appealed it to Cuusoo. I wouldn't be surprised if her sobbing video and the mob mentality she created played a huge role in her being denied. Had she kept quiet and gone through the proper procedures to appeal, they might have been willing to forgive what she did wrong, however when you create a huge drama spectacle out of it, it's most likely going to anger the powers at be and make them less inclined to forgive. It's like shaking the hornets nest. Her update video was so hard to watch, anyone with half a brain would see through the charade. She looked extremely irritated making it, which made me smile. From the disgusted look on her face I thought for sure she was going to fess up and apologize. When she started to keep with her story I literally facepalmed. I almost wish Cuusoo would break protocol and set the story straight, but I know because of privacy issues they probably can't legally. A lot of what she said in the update video pisses me off too. Primarily her claim that Jurassic Park is her idea. How infuriating, considering there is JP sets well over a year old, one that shares elements similar to hers. Talking about how the Lego receptionist told her she must be really popular made me chuckle. I highly doubt that actually happened. To be honest her "outpouring" of support on social media hasn't even really been that big. I counted probably under 150 post to her FB, and substantially less on Twitter. She's really trying to make this bigger than it is. I asked her via FB/Twitter if I could see the harassing emails (with headers) to validate her story. She obviously denied, saying that she didn't want to because people would attack them. I even offered to sign an NDA, which would pretty much legally bind me to not talk about the details. I think because she's not really willing to provide any evidence and she is now blocking and removing any dissenting feedback that her story is running on fumes. I just can't understand why so many people go off only her word when there are so many questions remaining unanswered. Legal secretary by day, Dramaqueen by night.
Legoofmyleg Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 The best approach for Lego/Cuusoo is to ignore her. If there was a legitimate reason for banning her then so be it and let the issue rest. Six months from now it won't matter and we will have all forgotten about this.
lightningtiger Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 Well, she's getting what she wants.......public attention - oh, look at me hard done by......by a global empire.....oh, dear.......- give me a break, if she really wanted to fix the problem she should have got some legal advice before going public on Youtube.
Amset-Rah Posted August 24, 2013 Posted August 24, 2013 Well, she's getting what she wants.......public attention - oh, look at me hard done by......by a global empire.....oh, dear.......- give me a break, if she really wanted to fix the problem she should have got some legal advice before going public on Youtube. Agreed, and for someone who's supposed to be a legal secretary, I would have expected more from her. I suppose it's time I weigh in on it all. I was a fan of hers for a while, since it was refreshing to see a female AFOL reviewer in a mainly male dominated community, but I think she's playing the victim card a but too much here. Think about it, the Kreo comment was uncalled for (Even if they do have the JP license) and she kept saying it was Lego's fault (Which isn't entirely true) because they knew how "big" she was (That I think is fake). She has fans, yes, but as many have said before, a lot of them are younger kids who don't let their emotions get the best of them. A lot of them in fact are fans of the Brick Show (Which isn't surprising) Personally, Cuusoo has never been of much interest to me. I like the sets that have come out of Cuusoo (Back to the Future being a personal favorite), but I see it as more of a MOC showcase with the tiny chance of being a real Lego set. BQ should have known that ideas based on IPs that Lego currently has aren't successful, unless they borrow the design (Which they may have done for the upcoming Manbat set, I don't know). There are some ideas I do support (Like the Western Town and Ghostbusters sets) but a majority of them just seem like MOCs to me than actual sets, unless they're done in Lego's set style (And even then, there's a bit of tinkering with the design before it's finalized). As for BQ, I think she went about this all wrong and I do believe she needs to take a break from YouTube and even Lego for a while to clear her head and to stop the embarrassment from progressing.
Blondie-Wan Posted August 25, 2013 Posted August 25, 2013 In academia we had an adage "the battles are so bitter because the stakes are so small." Even properly attributing the quote is fiercely debated to this day, Henry Kissinger, Woodrow Wilson and Wallace Sayre each have their own die-hard fan-boys...) I think too many people try to justify really bad behavior in the name of protecting their "big chance" at a 1% royalty payoff as if their idea were going to fly through review and bring in millions of dollars in royalties. Let's face it, CuuSoo is many things, but none of them are a get rich quick avenue to an early retirement. If you had a dollar from everyone who voted to get your project to 10,000 support, you'd probably make three times as much money as you'll actually see from that 1% royalty IF the kit actually makes it into production. It's not rocket science here. Historically, CuuSoo kits have a run of 10,000 units and Minecraft and BTTF each sold for 35USD, that translates to a 3,500USD payday for the designer, or about the cost of a dozen high-end LEGO kits. Well sure, but that said it's still a nice prize, considering most of us build LEGO projects all the time and get paid squat for them. Even if it's all the designer makes, $3499 isn't a trivial amount of money for some of us (I know I could sorely use that kind of money right now). Moreover, as far as I can tell all of the CUUSOO projects released after the first one (since Shinkai 6500 was a limited edition set) have wound up doing better than that - the Minecraft Micro World has obviously been a huge success, with numerous additional production runs needed to meet the immense demand, and the Back to the Future Time Machine appears to be doing extremely well also, from what we can see so far. Hayabusa is undoubtedly a slower mover, but given that it's been out for well over a year and hasn't had a price drop, I suspect it's selling well enough that it's done more than 10,000 units too (as surely if it were taking this long to go through just a single initial production run of 10k units, they'd have clearanced it by now). Getting a set through CUUSOO may not guarantee that more than 10k copies of your baby will be made and sold, but so far it appears that all the ones that have made it through the process actually have had just that very thing happen (excepting the limited-edition, Japan-only initial set). CUUSOO royalties won't let anyone retire, obviously, but I think it's fair to say they'll make life a fair bit easier, at least for a little while. (Of course, the Back to the Future set isn't bringing a payday for the designer anyway, but for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.)
Blondie-Wan Posted August 25, 2013 Posted August 25, 2013 FanDom and social media isn't a problem with CuuSoo. It's a core element of the platform. CuuSoo is meant to be a crowd sourcing based undertaking. It's bundled into it's very DNA. Cross promoting via other forms of social media is part and parcel. As is leveraging other social media comunities in support of your ideas. Indeed, they make a point of saying so: Some projects are using social networks and blogs to get supporters, is that against the rules? Not at all! In fact, connecting your LEGO® CUUSOO project with a passionate audience outside of the site is encouraged. It is extremely difficult to get 10,000 supporters without promoting your project outside of CUUSOO. It is assumed and encouraged that you will campaign for your project on a variety of blogs, fan forums, and social networks. Good luck on your journey to 10,000!
ShaydDeGrai Posted August 25, 2013 Posted August 25, 2013 Well sure, but that said it's still a nice prize, considering most of us build LEGO projects all the time and get paid squat for them. Even if it's all the designer makes, $3499 isn't a trivial amount of money for some of us (I know I could sorely use that kind of money right now). Three or four thousand certainly isn't trivial, but the real question is what are you willing to _do_ for it? I hear internet porn pays better than that for a single video and at the end of the day you'd probably embarrass yourself less than BQ has done with her YouTube campaign at this point. Moreover, as far as I can tell all of the CUUSOO projects released after the first one (since Shinkai 6500 was a limited edition set) have wound up doing better than that - the Minecraft Micro World has obviously been a huge success, with numerous additional production runs needed to meet the immense demand, and the Back to the Future Time Machine appears to be doing extremely well also, from what we can see so far. Hayabusa is undoubtedly a slower mover, but given that it's been out for well over a year and hasn't had a price drop, I suspect it's selling well enough that it's done more than 10,000 units too (as surely if it were taking this long to go through just a single initial production run of 10k units, they'd have clearanced it by now). I asked a Lego Community Rep about that at an event actually and while he admitted he wasn't sure and wouldn't speak for Tim's group, he thought that the follow-on Minecraft kits did NOT pay royalties to the original designer (since they were developed in house) and that there were only two 10K runs on the original kit. Hayabusa was a slow mover, but their contract under CuuSoo rules required them to pay the designer based on the MSRP and the production runs are small enough that there's not a lot to be gained by discounting a weak offering just to clear it out. I guess we'll see how BTTF does, I'd expect it to do well, but again, ultimately you'd probably have more money in your pocket by taking a summer job flipping burgers at McDonald's (would be as much fun, or have the bragging rights of being a "Lego Designer" but still...) I think my original point is still valid, the payoff is trivial compared to the arrogance, abuse and vitriol some users are posting all over the web over this "controversy". Far be it for me to decry computers are terrible things (since their existence pretty much pays for my Lego habit) but I do think that they have taken a terrible toll on basic civility and interpersonal behavior. The WWW has become a screen people hide behind while engaging in cyber bullying, propaganda campaigns, and the deliberate distribution of misleading data posing as facts. If people gave two seconds to think through what they'd post as if they were actually standing in a crowd of strangers speaking aloud, they'd probably dial back the rhetoric. If people actually ENGAGED in a debate rather than BROADCASTING an option and blocking all dissenters, there'd probably be more people on the sidelines walking away in disgust over how embarrassing the behavior of the main players are than enflaming the situation by running to champion one side or the other based solely on a cult of personality. (and yes I KNOW people being universally respectful and civil on the Internet is a utopian pipe-dream that will never come to pass - that's not an excuse for making things worse, however) As I said before, I'm not taking sides on the whole question of the banning (largely because I don't care, to be honest) but I do care about the aftermath for CuuSoo and the online FOL community in general and the longer this goes on the less sympathy I have for BQ. Hell, I had LOTR MOCs posted on line years before there _was_ a LEGO movie tie-in theme, and since I posted my ideas on CuuSoo, I've lost track of the number of others proposing their own variations on Fellbeast, Minas Tirith, Architecture style microbuilds, Orthancs, etc. There was even one project (gone now I think) that tried to copy my Minas Tirith Microbuild as an LDD model and when LDD couldn't make all the connections, they proposed a simplified model and then posted to MY project that 1) they TRIED to copy it exactly, 2) that I had to be using illegal building techniques in my actual build, 3) that everybody should go support their LDD version instead because their was "legal", and 4) hthat they "deserved" to "win" because my SNOT building techniques were "cheating". Somehow _I_ managed to resist the temptation to start a flame war, release tearful videos on YouTube or have my vast sea of minions (okay, well, my two cats and a couple kilos of mini-figures) threaten to rain chaos and death down upon everyone who didn't recognize my awesome power. I don't know how I ever managed to exercise such self control - oh, wait a sec, now I recall, I let it go. It wasn't worth the rancor. Supporters that are worth having aren't going to be so fickle as to be motivated by that sort of crap and if _I_ were to resort to that sort of response I'd not only be embarrassing myself, I'd be betraying everyone who'd supported me up to that point. If anything, I think it's a shame that BQ (regardless or whether she's been wronged or not) doesn't see that part of the equation.
Paul Boratko Posted August 25, 2013 Posted August 25, 2013 I can't beieve she still has those videos up... I wonder how many people wasted the time of the employees of Lego with e-mails and phone calls....
Faefrost Posted August 25, 2013 Posted August 25, 2013 (edited) The best approach for Lego/Cuusoo is to ignore her. If there was a legitimate reason for banning her then so be it and let the issue rest. Six months from now it won't matter and we will have all forgotten about this. Not just for Lego. This is a good approach for us around here. No one wins in a flame war. The parties involved know what got out of hand. We do not need to know. We can take a lesson from this of "don't be a raving jackass on Internet forums." Everything else has nothing to do with us. It is in our best interests to simply walk away and ignore it all. Move along nothing to see here. Edited August 25, 2013 by Faefrost
Blondie-Wan Posted August 25, 2013 Posted August 25, 2013 Three or four thousand certainly isn't trivial, but the real question is what are you willing to _do_ for it? I hear internet porn pays better than that for a single video and at the end of the day you'd probably embarrass yourself less than BQ has done with her YouTube campaign at this point. Ermm... I'd be willing to create a MOC of something I'd like to see as an official set and then post it somewhere where people could vote on it? Considering that the process of making a CUUSOO proposal is not all that different from what people do here on EB all the time just for fun (make something with LEGO, post pictures of it) without any expectation of compensation anyway, I just thought there's no harm in proposing projects, and if one actually has a project accepted and made into a set, it's a wonderful bonus. My post was responding to what I perhaps erroneously took to be a statement about CUUSOO generally (along the lines of "why bother?"), and not addressing this thing with BrickQueen at all. I didn't really want to add anything to the discussion of her; it strikes me as an ugly, unfortunate situation that doesn't reflect well on anyone, and I'd rather just ignore it. I just wanted to talk about CUUSOO's workings in a more general way, not with regard to this brouhaha. I asked a Lego Community Rep about that at an event actually and while he admitted he wasn't sure and wouldn't speak for Tim's group, he thought that the follow-on Minecraft kits did NOT pay royalties to the original designer (since they were developed in house) and that there were only two 10K runs on the original kit. Wow, that's very unexpected; based upon the several times the product was briefly available for a matter of hours or days, then sold out and got placed on backorder or whatever, to become available again and then unavailable again, it seemed pretty clear to me it was selling large numbers of copies, but I certainly don't claim to be privvy to TLG's inner workings. If I may ask, how long ago was it that you spoke to the Community Rep? Thanks for the info about Hayabusa (re: maintaining its price because of the original agreement). Though disappointing, it does explain the set's longevity at its original MSRP. It's too bad there apparently aren't that many LEGO fans who realize what a cool set it actually is.
ShaydDeGrai Posted August 25, 2013 Posted August 25, 2013 If I may ask, how long ago was it that you spoke to the Community Rep? It would have been back in May of this year, and feel free to take it with a healthy grain of salt. He freely admitted that he wasn't an expert on all things CuuSoo and that the internal lines of communication often left something to be desired.
Faefrost Posted August 25, 2013 Posted August 25, 2013 Wow, that's very unexpected; based upon the several times the product was briefly available for a matter of hours or days, then sold out and got placed on backorder or whatever, to become available again and then unavailable again, it seemed pretty clear to me it was selling large numbers of copies, but I certainly don't claim to be privvy to TLG's inner workings. If I may ask, how long ago was it that you spoke to the Community Rep? Thanks for the info about Hayabusa (re: maintaining its price because of the original agreement). Though disappointing, it does explain the set's longevity at its original MSRP. It's too bad there apparently aren't that many LEGO fans who realize what a cool set it actually is. I thought we once saw a report on the Minecraft set that implied an initial 10k run and possibly 2 subsequent runs of 20k each? 20k total just seems to small for what we have seen on store shelves more recently.
Paul Boratko Posted August 26, 2013 Posted August 26, 2013 This is pretty funny.. She can't figure out why that other project got over 1,000 supports in 4 days... Uh, maybe it was because you gave it so much attention from the videos you made and then when people seen how well done that it was they supported it... It must be a conspiracy... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc2pKEsv6iA&feature=youtu.be&a
Pixelbat Posted August 26, 2013 Posted August 26, 2013 This is pretty funny.. She can't figure out why that other project got over 1,000 supports in 4 days... Uh, maybe it was because you gave it so much attention from the videos you made and then when people seen how well done that it was they supported it... It must be a conspiracy... That's hilarious. Honestly... Seno's Jurassic Park set is really good. The Jeep actually looks like Lego style. Not all boxy and weird looking like hers. The T-Rex model is absolutely amazing. That alone makes the set awesome. I have a feeling she's not going to approve my comment, lol.
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