Borex

Compatible Minifigures Discussion.

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Buying bootlegs actually made me move more into buying custom figures on genuine Lego parts. Expensive decision

How is that really different? If someone is just buying some lego figure and painting a marvel suit over top it, they're still violating marvels IP and making money off it. That's just as much a bootleg.

 

 

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2 hours ago, crossmr said:

 

How is that really different? If someone is just buying some lego figure and painting a marvel suit over top it, they're still violating marvels IP and making money off it. That's just as much a bootleg.

 

 

We're not going to go there are we? I'm talking about a fully pad printed figure of a character not released by Lego or of an alternate design of a character that hasn't been released all on genuine Lego pieces. Not somebody painting something and selling it.

There's an entire section of the site dedicated to customisation including threads for custom figures for sale. We've also been over and over that there seems to be an acceptance of custom printed figures by both Lego and the IP holders as we know they are fully aware of the practice and yet choose to allows customisers to sell hundreds of figures per week on their online shops when a single email from a legal team would shut it down overnight.

I'm sure you'll have voiced your disapproval of the hand painted and moulded Aliens figures that are very popular and have been created and sold through threads on this site by a member? Will you be letting the customiser who has created a fantastic moulded Sauron with custom helmet and mace as well as all their other incredible LOTR and Hobbit moulds that you aren't happy with them too? I'm sure neither of these people had licenses to create these figures. Or is is just those that would make a Batman Beyond figure that deserve the full might of the law? Maybe a Spiderman UK figure? 

If it hasn't been done by Lego then it's not a clone. If Lego are fine with people producing custom figures then it should be fine for everyone else. I'm betting there are many people at Billund who will have custom figures on their desk if not in their collections wherever they're kept. If you were touring the studio there and saw a custom figure on a designers desk would you choose to reprimand them for having the audacity to own a custom figure as you've just tried to do to me?

I'll even point out there is a thread in the Customisation Forum which is pinned to the top. It's the Decal Request Thread. It's over 9 years old and in it there have been hundreds of requests for designs for licensed characters... with hundreds of them filled. This breaks the same IP law. The rules of the pinned thread state that only the originator of the decal is allowed to SELL their decals on BrickLink etc. Wouldn't that be profit through violation of other people's IP? The thread would be complicit in this violation as that's where the request for the design originated and the reason the decal was created in the first place.

Edited by Robianco

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2 hours ago, crossmr said:

 

How is that really different? If someone is just buying some lego figure and painting a marvel suit over top it, they're still violating marvels IP and making money off it. That's just as much a bootleg.

 

 

Typically most companies let a lot of it slide because of the scale of the operations. This is the rare time I have seen someone unhappy with customizers and level them on the same line as those "compatible minifigures"

The likes of Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, etc... have had to long combat unauthorized IP use that goes far beyond minifigures, custom fan produced stuff is not really worth it for them to fight as it can quite often be more of PR problem. Think of the ire that Star Trek recent received for trying to shut down a fan film.

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Yes technically customizers do violate copyrights, but most companies let it go because they usually aren't produced at the same scale as bootlegs are, and 9 times out of 10 they are made from official parts.  Unlike bootleggers who make copies of existing stuff and sell it as their own.  Personally I don't have a problem with either one, because I think a lot of copyright laws have been blown out of proportion, but that's a whole other issue I'm not getting into... From what I've seen customs usually have a quality level that's just as good or better than the real thing, while bootlegs seem to vary.  It took a bit of convincing before I got myself to buy bootlegs, but I promised myself I wouldn't ever go after customs. There's just way to much going on with that market, and theirs no way my budget would keep up with all the stuff I would want.

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Just now, Collector said:

Yes technically customizers do violate copyrights, but most companies let it go because they usually aren't produced at the same scale as bootlegs are, and 9 times out of 10 they are made from official parts.  Unlike bootleggers who make copies of existing stuff and sell it as their own.  Personally I don't have a problem with either one, because I think a lot of copyright laws have been blown out of proportion, but that's a whole other issue I'm not getting into... From what I've seen customs usually have a quality level that's just as good or better than the real thing, while bootlegs seem to vary.  It took a bit of convincing before I got myself to buy bootlegs, but I promised myself I wouldn't ever go after customs. There's just way to much going on with that market, and theirs no way my budget would keep up with all the stuff I would want.

In the same way that I won't touch a badly made figure be it bootleg or otherwise. A good print on a poorly moulded 'bootleg' minifigure is just as undesirable to me as a poorly printed and / or badly designed figure on genuine Lego parts. There's no difference to infringement of IP. The only difference is scale and that has nothing to do with IP infringement.

Custom figures are usually perfect with no misalignment or print errors especially on pad printed figures due to the short print run. There's even the chance to buy a 'misprinted' custom for a reduced rate (when the misprint is almost indistinguishable from the perfect print).

I'm not going to apologise to anyone for owning a custom figure as it's a perfectly legitimate part of collecting minifigures and has been for as long as I can remember. In the same way I'm not going to apologise for the Captain America First Avenger torso that's on my custom of him as nobody else has created one and it looks and feels as good as genuine Lego.

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52 minutes ago, bbquicksilver said:

Missing the old thread very much. Prefer not to walk on egg shells. Is the consensus moving to the reddit page or the facebook page?

I'm good with Reddit, but I really hate Facebook

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1 hour ago, bbquicksilver said:

Missing the old thread very much. Prefer not to walk on egg shells. Is the consensus moving to the reddit page or the facebook page?

 

6 minutes ago, Collector said:

I'm good with Reddit, but I really hate Facebook

 

Personally I'd rather use the reddit sub for the anonymity if nothing else. I think it's just a case of figuring out what would work and then seeing if we want to move away from here. I'm no fan of dancing around restrictions (particularly vaguely-defined ones) but I'll stay around wherever the conversation is.

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10 hours ago, Borex said:

For the people that bought Mysterio. With a bit of white paint (on the inside of the helmet) he looks much better imho.

15rio2r.jpg

I think we still can link pictures from Ali, as long as it is just only the pic and not a link? And otherwise we could say like kf number this, or pogo number that etc.. and we could search for them ourselfs?

agree 100%. I did the same thing

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8 hours ago, Robianco said:

We're not going to go there are we? I'm talking about a fully pad printed figure of a character not released by Lego or of an alternate design of a character that hasn't been released all on genuine Lego pieces. Not somebody painting something and selling it.

There's an entire section of the site dedicated to customisation including threads for custom figures for sale. We've also been over and over that there seems to be an acceptance of custom printed figures by both Lego and the IP holders as we know they are fully aware of the practice and yet choose to allows customisers to sell hundreds of figures per week on their online shops when a single email from a legal team would shut it down overnight.

I'm sure you'll have voiced your disapproval of the hand painted and moulded Aliens figures that are very popular and have been created and sold through threads on this site by a member? Will you be letting the customiser who has created a fantastic moulded Sauron with custom helmet and mace as well as all their other incredible LOTR and Hobbit moulds that you aren't happy with them too? I'm sure neither of these people had licenses to create these figures. Or is is just those that would make a Batman Beyond figure that deserve the full might of the law? Maybe a Spiderman UK figure? 

If it hasn't been done by Lego then it's not a clone. If Lego are fine with people producing custom figures then it should be fine for everyone else. I'm betting there are many people at Billund who will have custom figures on their desk if not in their collections wherever they're kept. If you were touring the studio there and saw a custom figure on a designers desk would you choose to reprimand them for having the audacity to own a custom figure as you've just tried to do to me?

I'll even point out there is a thread in the Customisation Forum which is pinned to the top. It's the Decal Request Thread. It's over 9 years old and in it there have been hundreds of requests for designs for licensed characters... with hundreds of them filled. This breaks the same IP law. The rules of the pinned thread state that only the originator of the decal is allowed to SELL their decals on BrickLink etc. Wouldn't that be profit through violation of other people's IP? The thread would be complicit in this violation as that's where the request for the design originated and the reason the decal was created in the first place.

We are going there yes, and I was genuinely curious why one theft was considered acceptable here while another isn't.

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4 hours ago, crossmr said:

We are going there yes, and I was genuinely curious why one theft was considered acceptable here while another isn't.

From what I've seen typically the use of actual Lego parts is what seems to be the reasoning why many think customs are okay as opposed to the other.

I agree that the legal sense of it all doesn't make too much a difference, but the use of official parts and the quality of the printing is what makes the difference for many others.

Edited by CaptvirgilHilts

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7 minutes ago, CaptvirgilHilts said:

From what I've seen typically the use of actual Lego parts is what seems to be the reasoning why many think customs are okay as opposed to the other.

I agree that the legal sense of it all doesn't make too much a difference, but the use of official parts and the quality of the printing is what makes the difference for many others.

quality of printing is irrelevant to breaking the law. No company is going to say "Oh you made a really high quality product when you ripped us off, so I guess that's okay". It just seems very hypocritical of the mods for any thread discussing anything remotely in violation of IP law to be allowed when those threads were closed. If you're making a custom not based on IP using official lego pieces (like WW2 stuff) that's fine, but if you're making your own marvel minis or whatever, whether you're using lego parts or not, you're violating IP and under the new guideline it shouldn't be permitted.

 

Edited by crossmr

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Let's get the ball rolling. Don't forget about the "custom" molded ones. hehehe. Here are mine.

 

Think big. 

29870994650_851f6ae58f_q.jpg

Let's get the ball rolling. Don't forget about the "custom" molded ones. hehehe. Here are mine.

Think big.

test link from my flicker to see if it shows up better. can't believe you can only upload .02mb in this day and age. hehe

 

29870994650_851f6ae58f_b.jpg

 

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6 hours ago, crossmr said:

We are going there yes, and I was genuinely curious why one theft was considered acceptable here while another isn't.

I think, for many, it's acceptable because of the current culture. Customized minifigures are in a way like fan art. It is a common occurrence for artists to create and sell items based off of popular IPs. For example custom movie posters/prints are really popular right now. Yes, they're benefiting from someone else's property, but the production of these items is usually so limited that most of these rights holders don't care. Some even encourage it just to draw even more attention to the property. It's not acting in accord to the law, but as a culture it's been accepted.

2 hours ago, crossmr said:

quality of printing is irrelevant to breaking the law. No company is going to say "Oh you made a really high quality product when you ripped us off, so I guess that's okay". It just seems very hypocritical of the mods for any thread discussing anything remotely in violation of IP law to be allowed when those threads were closed. If you're making a custom not based on IP using official lego pieces (like WW2 stuff) that's fine, but if you're making your own marvel minis or whatever, whether you're using lego parts or not, you're violating IP and under the new guideline it shouldn't be permitted.

 

Actually, when you look at the site guidelines it specifies "Manufacturers". So, custom minifigures are just as permitted as they ever have been. The new guidelines apply to discussion and promotion of companies who mass produce stolen products.

Edited by strangely

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4 hours ago, rmorales629 said:

Let's get the ball rolling. Don't forget about the "custom" molded ones. hehehe. Here are mine.

 

Think big. 

29870994650_851f6ae58f_q.jpg

Let's get the ball rolling. Don't forget about the "custom" molded ones. hehehe. Here are mine.

Think big.

test link from my flicker to see if it shows up better. can't believe you can only upload .02mb in this day and age. hehe

 

29870994650_851f6ae58f_b.jpg

 

Those are immense!!! :-D great work! I love apocalypse and the giant titan most! Wicked!!  What did you do the sculpting with? Apoxy?


Btw I know people will probably just ignore me, as there are a bunch of people on here who have been pretty rude at times, through my experience.

But for those who accept logic here it is ....

1. Nobody knows Lego's reason for leaving custom sellers alone. Other than somebody that works at Lego. Literally everything said in those earlier posts is just wild speculation.
2. Eurobricks have made us a new forum to talk about compatible figures, as long as we don't talk about figures that are direct clones of actual physically made Lego figures. The ones Lego sells to make a profit. Anyone who doesn't like that leave. We don't need to debate their reasons, or the morality. It is what it is, just be happy have fun with the hobby that we enjoy, or your own version of it and live and let live.

Like those big figs I just commented on, they are amazing!! Lets see more of stuff like that :) and more convos that help each other rather than attacking and arguing. If someone comes on and tries to incite an arguement, just ignore them, they will soon get bored.

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Let me try to swerve the trail a bit but still stay in the general topic since this is to do with compatible.

if you were running a toy review site/forum that clearly states that its for AFOB. would you allow pics like my girls here to be posted? Thanks for any comment. And I'm betting this post would be deleted soon (haven't really read all the rules here, hopefully not). I got them custom printed for a God of War dio and used them in some other pictures as well. Also one short stop motion vid with some nudity. 

Anyway.. enjoy!

29105196610_521c9b9532_b.jpg

 

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4 hours ago, crossmr said:

quality of printing is irrelevant to breaking the law. No company is going to say "Oh you made a really high quality product when you ripped us off, so I guess that's okay". It just seems very hypocritical of the mods for any thread discussing anything remotely in violation of IP law to be allowed when those threads were closed. If you're making a custom not based on IP using official lego pieces (like WW2 stuff) that's fine, but if you're making your own marvel minis or whatever, whether you're using lego parts or not, you're violating IP and under the new guideline it shouldn't be permitted.

 

From what I can gather it's not a violation of the new guideline. I wrote a wordy reply giving direct examples of the acceptance of IP infringement but I thought better of it.

If the license holder doesn't feel the need to intervene then I'm not sure why anybody would feel the need to police things for them. I'm sure if anybody got particularly specific with regards to printing military stuff, as you have mentioned, then that would also contravene some IP laws. Did you know that Picasso felt that the design of camouflage netting was copied from his work? Even if he said it in jest did you also know that camouflage patterns do actually have a copyright?

This is a pointless conversation as people either accept that custom items are acceptable on EB or they don't, regardless of whether they accept them in the world outside of this site. I don't see the need to continually make that point.

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16 minutes ago, MNW said:

Those are immense!!! :-D great work! I love apocalypse and the giant titan most! Wicked!!  What did you do the sculpting with? Apoxy?


Btw I know people will probably just ignore me, as there are a bunch of people on here who have been pretty rude at times, through my experience.

But for those who accept logic here it is ....

1. Nobody knows Lego's reason for leaving custom sellers alone. Other than somebody that works at Lego. Literally everything said in those earlier posts is just wild speculation.
2. Eurobricks have made us a new forum to talk about compatible figures, as long as we don't talk about figures that are direct clones of actual physically made Lego figures. The ones Lego sells to make a profit. Anyone who doesn't like that leave. We don't need to debate their reasons, or the morality. It is what it is, just be happy have fun with the hobby that we enjoy, or your own version of it and live and let live.

Like those big figs I just commented on, they are amazing!! Lets see more of stuff like that :) and more convos that help each other rather than attacking and arguing. If someone comes on and tries to incite an arguement, just ignore them, they will soon get bored.

Thanks not really sure what its called since Apoxy is not available in our country I think. I think it's called sculpie and waterstop. 

 

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6 minutes ago, rmorales629 said:

Let me try to swerve the trail a bit but still stay in the general topic since this is to do with compatible.

if you were running a toy review site/forum that clearly states that its for AFOB. would you allow pics like my girls here to be posted? Thanks for any comment. And I'm betting this post would be deleted soon (haven't really read all the rules here, hopefully not). I got them custom printed for a God of War dio and used them in some other pictures as well. Also one short stop motion vid with some nudity. 

Anyway.. enjoy!

Haha they made me chuckle :) brazen hussies!! haha

 

1 minute ago, rmorales629 said:

Thanks not really sure what its called since Apoxy is not available in our country I think. I think it's called sculpie and waterstop. 

 

Aah I have some sculpy :) I need to have a go at trying to make something at some point, I keep putting it off lol. I definitely won't be creating anything as good as yours for sometime!

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I can't believe it's taken me a couple of days to find this thread. It's been very quiet since the old one was closed.

On 10/16/2016 at 8:27 PM, jeduh said:

Anyone seen the new DLP Spider-Man set? If so can anyone name all of them? No idea what some of them are :tongue:

Saw a good post on Facebook with screen caps of the corresponding game characters.

Facebook

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23 hours ago, Robianco said:

The thing about the previous thread was that when information about new figures was posted there was almost always someone to point out where the figure may have come from design-wise. Buying bootlegs actually made me move more into buying custom figures on genuine Lego parts. Expensive decision.

Selfish plug, but if anyone wants to help with the Google Sheet I have going, one of the things I'm trying to track is sources - be they TLG or custom.

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17 minutes ago, agoodfella77 said:

Are we allowed to post links to re-sellers / distributors (i.e. Alixxxxxx?)

That might come down to what the seller sells also, eg they might sell items that breach the websites new rules and regs etc. you would have to ask a mod, I'm sure they would help

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