Community actions to support LEGO against copy thiefs, protecting our hobby

[jim7564]

On 20/12/2016 at 11:52 PM, crossmr said:

People should remember that Lego isn't your friend. They're a business first a foremost, and despite their long history and how long we've played with their product, they aren't our buddy, and they're making money hand over fist. They don't need our help to defend them or anything else. The only thing they care about is profit. Why do you think we have stickers instead of printed bricks these days?

 

what is it with folk on here defending LEGO as its simply building blocks like cars etc it was started by one and everyone copied it,we dont have a problem with that Lego is just the same,Does anyone on here own or manage Lego etc.IT SHOULD BE ABOUT THE CREATIONS YOU MAKE not this crap about ripping clone bricks to shreds etc.

I dont have a problem with any brand of building block,the cheaper the better so I can build and not have to break my models up but because of the price I can afford to keep buying more.

I joined this site to look and learn on how to improve my building techniques  NOT to be judged on my choice of bricks.now to the REALISTs here I had 10,000 Lego branded pieces which were pure crap,would not stay together kept falling apart so their product is of no better quality than some ofthese cheap chinese knock offs

 

[pittpenguin123]

Remeber guys dont say every body copied lego and they are the orginal! They ae a offbrand too! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiddicraft

Edited December 22, 2016 by pittpenguin123

[L@go]

16 hours ago, jim7564 said:

what is it with folk on here defending LEGO as its simply building blocks like cars etc...

Well... it might have something to do with the fact that it's a LEGO fansite, not a generic building blocks fansite. If you joined a Mercedes fansite and showed them the wonderful Mercedes you'd built, I'm pretty sure some the members would have told you they didn't quite appreciate all the cheap Hyundai parts you'd used.

And if you're going to rant, please rant in the relevant thread. This is not a general thread about other manufacturers which produce LEGO-compatible building blocks, it's a very specific thread about the manufacturers who produce detailed copies of whole LEGO sets, replicated piece for piece, even using LEGOs own box art to sell their (undeniably inferior) product - and the latest development is that they're now even cloning the creations of LEGO fans (without permission) to sell as sets. The general consensus on the site is that this is not okay on any level - it's theft of intellectual property and probably, in some cases, industrial espionage - while the manufacturers who produce LEGO-compatible building blocks are tolerated as long as their products are their own designs. It is, however, generally considered fair game to let people know if you've built a MOC using blocks that are not LEGO. Because it's a LEGO fansite.

Sorry, I had to.

EDIT: Let me just add something here, while I'm at it, with your best interest in mind (and everybody else in your situation - I'm sure you're not the only one who's become frustrated about this attitude in here). I've read your posts about your ships. All of them. And no matter what you or I or anybody else thinks about the fact that there are a lot of non-LEGO parts in them, they are of course hugely impressive creations, and I sincerely mean that - I would never dare to start a project of that size. You're obviously proud of them and want to make people aware of them, which is completely understandable. Then you had somebody ask you if there were non-LEGO parts used, and you said, rather politely and a-matter-of-factly yes, and explained why. Brilliant. The next time somebody asked the same question, you became very defensive, resorted to caps lock and stated that people shouldn't care about that. And then you've had... what, two people? Three people? say something along the lines of "using non-LEGO parts feels a bit like cheating". Three people! Are you aware of how many members this forum has?

My point is: If you can't tolerate that some people (myself included) prefer to see creations built solely (or at least mainly) from LEGO - on a LEGO fan site - then you have a problem. The solution would be to a) ignore those people, or even better, politely repeat the reason why you're not using LEGO (cost, availability, etc), b) refrain from making bitter and repetitive posts about what's wrong with people on this site, on relevant and irrelevant threads, and c) instead focus on the fact that the majority of the people who have commented on your posts seem to like what you're doing, regardless of what kind of building blocks you're using.

[agrof]

On 2016. 12. 22. at 5:13 PM, pittpenguin123 said:

Remeber guys dont say every body copied lego and they are the orginal! They ae a offbrand too! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiddicraft

On 2016. 12. 22. at 10:27 AM, jim7564 said:

what is it with folk on here defending LEGO as its simply building blocks like cars etc it was started by one and everyone copied it,we dont have a problem with that Lego is just the same,Does anyone on here own or manage Lego etc.IT SHOULD BE ABOUT THE CREATIONS YOU MAKE not this crap about ripping clone bricks to shreds etc.

We are not talking about the brick as material itself, but about all the creativity, work, which bring these bricks alive. An easy example: what people see, and want to own?

This: bulk parts?

Or this: nice to look at and play with, + easy-to-follow assembly instructions?

The difference between the two pictures is called Intellectual Property, which is harmed (stolen) by the known knock-off brands.

If they would show up with own designs (f.e.: Oxford Blocks, Cobi, Megablocks), than why not? But till that... 

Edited January 2, 2017 by agrof

[TomOOO]

I provided a legal break down of this in some detail elsewhere which I cannot find now.  As people have noted and in summary of my long discussion before...

1) There is no issue with ABS bricks, lego actually "copied" this years ago and has failed to "protect" the lego brick as a being covered by a patent.  This is "correct".

2) First problem is loss of IP : where a certain company has made exact copies of the designs not just of lego but also of MOC's provided by AFOL's.  The copy of these designs is a loss of revenue to Lego as design is expensive as it requires many people to both create these and QA them and make them accessible to the general public as a working model without errors, robust and easily made.  This also highlights a problem of the Lego business model where the bricks themselves have a value which is of course much less than the price/brick value, but you have to pay for the design component of sets.  But if you buy the bricks separately then this costs more than the set.  So the price of bricks subsidizes the design cost - which is the massive problem here, and the price of brick cost massively subsidizes sets.  So this Chinese company is undermining the fundamental business model of Lego where they have to charge more for "bricks" to pay for the design.  Lego can only compete on this if it gets rid of all designs and only markets bricks !

3) Breaking franchise agreement  : there are multiple sets that have been copied where Lego pays a franchise agreement, ie Volvo, Porche, Star wars...  Therefore Lego has loss of revenue since the company is breaking this, and franchise companies could join the legal action as you cannot sell a "copy" of a real thing (Ie a Porche 911) without paying Porche.

4) Loss of IP on design and printing - ie these copies a so close they are using the graphic design - again expensive.  Just look at the packaging discussion on this forum to see how important graphic design is.  Even the instruction are expensive to create - check and double check that they work.  Think about taking a technic set apart - it seams so locked together - you wonder how you made it in the first place.

5) Loss of face : If people believe that they are "being ripped off on price" by Lego because Lego is more expensive (see 2/3/4) then Lego has Loss of face with the public.  Ie the public cannot be expected in most part to understand ROI (return on investment) and other parts of Lego business model which requires them to sell Lego at a certain price point.  I am certain most people will not realize the subsidization of design in sets by brick cost.

6) Future development costs : We expect Lego to come out with new product streams : for example Mind-storms and power functions; the R&D (research and development) costs are significant.  We know that some of this is subsidized (ie MIT developed the first mindstorms ideas, so these came at cost), but even so this future development path is very expensive to maintain.  Copies of Lego require protection (just like drug development) or there is no point of developing new Lego product lines.

7) Old designs and new designs.  Lego makes no direct revenue out of old models as it retires old sets and makes no revenue from these.  In fact it provides instruction downloads for old sets (though of course buying the bricks to build these is 2-3 times more expensive than the sets - see 2).  New sets are the problem and I saw multiple technical sets available before Lego made them available - I wonder if 2017 H1 technical release date was brought forward because of this.

8) Loss of face : if people (children is the main target) believe that this brick is not very good and models don't work then they believe that the brick = Lego is a bad toy.  Ie there is less of face for Lego if the customers believe that the ABS brick does not work as a toy. The critical issue here is "brand recognition" - ie more children actually probably understand "real-Lego" and "fake-Lego" at an early age as Lego brand recognition is so strong; so Lego is unlikely to win on this issue: ie this point only reinforces the Lego quality issue (particularly with Technics where the tolerances are so high, or mini-figures where perfection is only good enough).

8) Support : Lego provides a very high level of support, will replace missing parts, are always helpful even if you did not buy from shop@home.  That is expensive, bet you won't get an answer from clone companies when you have a missing part.

So think carefully, this is very bad for Lego but ALSO very bad for us : Lego could drop all design and support as the only way to compete.  All new idea product streams would stop (power-functions are not perfect, but they really are very good and the PM (pulse modulation) control is way beyond anything from the model railway system - lego trains work much better than h-----y trains when running slowly or with lots of rolling stock).  Then there are the AFOL's that loose all their designs - even now I imagine there will be restrictions on "free" design from AFOL's .  

 

Sorry about the typo's and also missed a couple of definitions:

IP : Intellectual Property : the role of Patents is to protect ideas - it recognizes that a person came up with a idea and owns that idea

QA : Quality Assessment

 

[letsbuild]

Something I want to throw in here is the fact that LEGO had actually put a patent on the brick. The problem is that the patent expired a few years ago.

[monkles]

On 11/1/2016 at 7:59 AM, Anarich said:

First of all good day for everyone. I'm Anar from Baku, Azerbaijan. I'm AFOL, reading the EB almost every day, but I'm more a reader, than a writer. So let me share my opinion about this problem.

The problem is that the TLG does not want to adapt to the market influenced by the new players (china companies). It's all about marketing. For example spending out about 250 or 300 euros for a new Porsche isn't something everyone will accept. On the other side are the MOC makers and their creations. TLG can also get benefits of their hard work by simply inviting these people to work together or etc. 

Chinese manufacturers are able to quickly analyze the market and to produce a finished product for the price, good for shoppers. TLG company need to adopt an adaptive strategy that makes them more sensitive to market trends and demands. That's all.

P.S. Sorry for my bad English. 

This is very true. There is one generic copy of the Green Grocer selling for $150 on eBay. The actual Lego GG is well over $1000 for an unopened set. I realize the difficulty in re-releasing sets, but in cases like that they probably should.

[VaderFan2187]

17 hours ago, monkles said:

This is very true. There is one generic copy of the Green Grocer selling for $150 on eBay. The actual Lego GG is well over $1000 for an unopened set. I realize the difficulty in re-releasing sets, but in cases like that they probably should.

Perhaps that is why LEGO is putting ex-rare figures in cheap sets (General Grievous, Palpatine, Vader)? Also why they rereleased 10188? 

[Robianco]

I still think it's a pretty poor argument. Lego made a set and they don't sell it anymore... It's the same with every single toy maker in the world. There are things that get made and then further down the line the value of them goes up due to the fact that someone wants them but they're not available anymore.

All of the bricks are available from BrickLink and the instructions are available free online. The fact that some of the bricks are not widely available isn't something Lego need to concern themselves with... there was enough of them for that set and probably quite a few more available that were distributed through various means but now the aftermarket has dictated the price.

If you want to buy the fake then that's up to you but don't say that it's Lego's fault. It isn't. They have a price point and you can either meet it or not. It doesn't need to go any deeper than that. The argument that there's a cheaper alternative so Lego need to lower their price to meet it is ridiculous... every manufacturer in the world will face these issues... You can buy anything cheaper... anything at all... it doesn't mean every maker needs to hit the lowest price point to compete or somehow be 'fair' to consumers. Lego has products at every price range but wanting the largest and most expensive at small set prices is just down to the selfishness of the consumer. No manufacturer owes the consumer anything other than the product doing what it is advertised to do. Lego don't owe anyone cheaper prices and nobody owes Lego the promise to buy their products.

[monkles]

3 hours ago, Robianco said:

I still think it's a pretty poor argument. Lego made a set and they don't sell it anymore... It's the same with every single toy maker in the world. There are things that get made and then further down the line the value of them goes up due to the fact that someone wants them but they're not available anymore.

All of the bricks are available from BrickLink and the instructions are available free online. The fact that some of the bricks are not widely available isn't something Lego need to concern themselves with... there was enough of them for that set and probably quite a few more available that were distributed through various means but now the aftermarket has dictated the price.

If you want to buy the fake then that's up to you but don't say that it's Lego's fault. It isn't. They have a price point and you can either meet it or not. It doesn't need to go any deeper than that. The argument that there's a cheaper alternative so Lego need to lower their price to meet it is ridiculous... every manufacturer in the world will face these issues... You can buy anything cheaper... anything at all... it doesn't mean every maker needs to hit the lowest price point to compete or somehow be 'fair' to consumers. Lego has products at every price range but wanting the largest and most expensive at small set prices is just down to the selfishness of the consumer. No manufacturer owes the consumer anything other than the product doing what it is advertised to do. Lego don't owe anyone cheaper prices and nobody owes Lego the promise to buy their products.

It's not so much that, it's the fact consumers are obviously willing to pay (a few I guess) thousands for a set that was worth $200 at the time of retail. Lego isn't earning money via this scalping and the scarcity is being abused by people who have found a market recreating the set as a fake.

If Lego were to re-release GG at even the price of Assembly Square then they could basically print money. This is a unique case where licensing doesn't matter so it would require a very small outlay to do and there would be queues of people who would quite willingly spend hundreds more bricklinking it anyway. I realize Lego can't re-release everything, but 99.9% of old sets aren't in any kind of regular demand.

Fakes of new sets are beyond control and Lego just has to hope grandma knows what real Lego looks like... and child is suitably despondent when he receives garbage.

[crossmr]

On 1/4/2017 at 0:47 AM, TomOOO said:

I provided a legal break down of this in some detail elsewhere which I cannot find now.  As people have noted and in summary of my long discussion before...

1) There is no issue with ABS bricks, lego actually "copied" this years ago and has failed to "protect" the lego brick as a being covered by a patent.  This is "correct".

2) First problem is loss of IP : where a certain company has made exact copies of the designs not just of lego but also of MOC's provided by AFOL's.  The copy of these designs is a loss of revenue to Lego as design is expensive as it requires many people to both create these and QA them and make them accessible to the general public as a working model without errors, robust and easily made.  This also highlights a problem of the Lego business model where the bricks themselves have a value which is of course much less than the price/brick value, but you have to pay for the design component of sets.  But if you buy the bricks separately then this costs more than the set.  So the price of bricks subsidizes the design cost - which is the massive problem here, and the price of brick cost massively subsidizes sets.  So this Chinese company is undermining the fundamental business model of Lego where they have to charge more for "bricks" to pay for the design.  Lego can only compete on this if it gets rid of all designs and only markets bricks !

3) Breaking franchise agreement  : there are multiple sets that have been copied where Lego pays a franchise agreement, ie Volvo, Porche, Star wars...  Therefore Lego has loss of revenue since the company is breaking this, and franchise companies could join the legal action as you cannot sell a "copy" of a real thing (Ie a Porche 911) without paying Porche.

4) Loss of IP on design and printing - ie these copies a so close they are using the graphic design - again expensive.  Just look at the packaging discussion on this forum to see how important graphic design is.  Even the instruction are expensive to create - check and double check that they work.  Think about taking a technic set apart - it seams so locked together - you wonder how you made it in the first place.

5) Loss of face : If people believe that they are "being ripped off on price" by Lego because Lego is more expensive (see 2/3/4) then Lego has Loss of face with the public.  Ie the public cannot be expected in most part to understand ROI (return on investment) and other parts of Lego business model which requires them to sell Lego at a certain price point.  I am certain most people will not realize the subsidization of design in sets by brick cost.

6) Future development costs : We expect Lego to come out with new product streams : for example Mind-storms and power functions; the R&D (research and development) costs are significant.  We know that some of this is subsidized (ie MIT developed the first mindstorms ideas, so these came at cost), but even so this future development path is very expensive to maintain.  Copies of Lego require protection (just like drug development) or there is no point of developing new Lego product lines.

7) Old designs and new designs.  Lego makes no direct revenue out of old models as it retires old sets and makes no revenue from these.  In fact it provides instruction downloads for old sets (though of course buying the bricks to build these is 2-3 times more expensive than the sets - see 2).  New sets are the problem and I saw multiple technical sets available before Lego made them available - I wonder if 2017 H1 technical release date was brought forward because of this.

8) Loss of face : if people (children is the main target) believe that this brick is not very good and models don't work then they believe that the brick = Lego is a bad toy.  Ie there is less of face for Lego if the customers believe that the ABS brick does not work as a toy. The critical issue here is "brand recognition" - ie more children actually probably understand "real-Lego" and "fake-Lego" at an early age as Lego brand recognition is so strong; so Lego is unlikely to win on this issue: ie this point only reinforces the Lego quality issue (particularly with Technics where the tolerances are so high, or mini-figures where perfection is only good enough).

8) Support : Lego provides a very high level of support, will replace missing parts, are always helpful even if you did not buy from shop@home.  That is expensive, bet you won't get an answer from clone companies when you have a missing part.

So think carefully, this is very bad for Lego but ALSO very bad for us : Lego could drop all design and support as the only way to compete.  All new idea product streams would stop (power-functions are not perfect, but they really are very good and the PM (pulse modulation) control is way beyond anything from the model railway system - lego trains work much better than h-----y trains when running slowly or with lots of rolling stock).  Then there are the AFOL's that loose all their designs - even now I imagine there will be restrictions on "free" design from AFOL's .  

 

Sorry about the typo's and also missed a couple of definitions:

IP : Intellectual Property : the role of Patents is to protect ideas - it recognizes that a person came up with a idea and owns that idea

QA : Quality Assessment

 

5 and 8 are the same, that's never a good sign, in regards to 9, yes the companies will replace your parts. If you've bought it through aliexpress they have to or they don't get paid, and reports from those who actually live in China state that when a set is missing a piece they have problems getting the missing pieces.

Number 2 is irrelevant. if Lego is trying to make up the price of sets on individual brick prices, that's a stupid business model. They have no legal claim to most of the blocks, and only a trademark on the minifigure in some places.

Number 3 is also irrelevant, the chinese companies are not part of any agreement between Lego and Company X. no agreement is being broken by them copying their goods. Yes, they're violating IP law by doing so, but it has no bearing on the legal status of the agreement between Lego and Company X.

4 - They've committed IP theft, they've caused no loss on the design to Lego. Graphical design costs are a sunk cost. Whether they sell 1 or 10,000 they still have to design those boxes. Bootleg companies may use those, but no one anywhere is fooled into believing they are genuine lego. People can clearly tell the Logos apart. Even parents.

6 - Lego isn't hurting for money. The small bite these companies are taking, mostly in China isn't jeopardizing that.

7 - I actually wouldn't mind if there was a brand that focused on sets from, say, 5 years ago and further back. If Lego does provide all the instructions, I'd like to see a company sell "brick packs" for those who want them. No box, no manual, just the correct number of bricks to build set "X" from at least 5 years ago. Since they don't have a patent on the bricks anymore, they couldn't even really do anything about that legally.

I think people are overestimating how much damage these clone sets are causing. Clone sets have been around for a long time, it's only recently though that their quality improve and they started doing the really big sets. I think clone lego is a lot like pirated music, in that you can't really tell if people would buy it otherwise.

Most pirated music would not be legally purchased if it weren't available and I think the same goes for bootleg bricks. Especially in china where there is a price disparity of something like 1/7th the lego price, people aren't going to shell out the money for those kinds of sets. Real Lego purchases would be few and far between. Also, keep in mind that despite Lego using Chinese factories to make local sets, they still charge the same price in China that they charge in the rest of the world. Lego, in a sense, is basically trying to rip chinese people off, you'd think with cheaper local labour they'd offer a cheaper price domestically, but they don't. I think most westerners who use a site like Aliexpress wouldn't be buying near as much as they do, if at all. So in terms of hurting Lego's bottom line, I think the people who could afford to buy Lego are doing so, and those who couldn't and buy bootleg sets would never spend the cash on genuine lego.

What they're doing is clearly illegal and wrong, I'm just not sure how much impact it's actually having on Lego, and how much damage Lego is doing to itself. Personally I'm not overly impressed with Lego in the last decade or so, especially since I've seen that there are quality original companies out there (like Oxford in Korea) who sell stuff at a fraction of the price. I grew up on Lego, loved Lego from that era, but I think they need to take a step back and evaluate everything.

 

 

 

 

 

[Anarich]

 I don't want to watch another war between Lego purists and the clone fаns. Just leave this photo here. The simple but reassuring fact is that nobody is born a saint.

 

[Anonknee Muss]

On 10/31/2016 at 9:45 PM, Offroadcreat1ons said:

And now MOC rip-offs!

Sorry to jump right in but this, this right here is why I don't want to post my MOC's, I'm always ranting to family members about rip-offs, it angers me that people knowingly buy the rip-offs.