Sven J

Unauthorized selling of instructions for MOCs

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1 hour ago, dtomsen said:

In my humle opinion he does great work for our community with his work and even though he should have asked explicitly for your permission, to throw him in with the rest of the sad examples in this thread is just as wrong,

Distributing someone else's work without their knowledge / permission is not acceptable. Full stop. And no, to raise issue with this is not "just as wrong".

@Tenderlok has every right ask for the removal of his work from unauthorized websites, regardless how much "great work" this unnamed person does.

Edited by CDM

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Sven, you are a great trainbuilder and seems a nice person so I’m sadden that you take offense where I’m quite sure none was intended. Only flattering imitation and wanting to share the instuctions to a great model once public with the community.

But he should have asked you but probably didn’t know your past history.

However a few clarifying points:

The donations are not for your models explicit but for all the hard work he puts in the instructions and the upkeep of the website. And iti is up to people whether they want to donate or not. It is very typical of the sharing mindset. Also the instructions are definitely not just lazy copy-paste jobs but in some ways work of art themselves. But that is another discussion...like who has the copyright to them?

The person in question is also a nice honest person himself so if you ask him to remove the instructions and never do any of yours again publicly as you have, I’m quite sure he will comply without question.

Just to clarify, Sven, I do not question your rights to your own models in any way. I have myself seen my models sold as unique, reverse enginered and even put on LEGO Ideas without any acknowledgement of me, so I know the hurt. I’m just defending the integrity of said person.

Like you, I would hate that person to go silent or completly withdraw from the community.

 

CDM, when the integrity of said person which I know is on the table and not only his actions, it sure is ok to take issue and clarify things as long as you try to keep it as polite as possible.

Edited by dtomsen

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2 hours ago, Tenderlok said:

And it's no excuse that this has happened with other builders' creations, too.

I think you misunderstood me.

Insofar as I know, he has been in agreement with most if not all before making instructions, including me.

 

 

 

Edited by dtomsen

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1 hour ago, Tenderlok said:

@dtomsen I think we're talking about the same person.
Yes, he credits the original designers (albeit, in my case, misspelled). But that does not affect my main two points. First, that I feel hoodwinked when someone asks me questions about my models without claryfing his intentions, and then I accidentally find instructions for my models offered on his website; and second, that I simply do not like to see people taking (ever so little) money for something that is actually freely available.
And it's no excuse that this has happened with other builders' creations, too. Also, the community argument is not very valid in my opinion, for you can justify just any kind of plagiarism with it.

Another thought: Yes, he has turned the original LDD files into instructions, and yes, this is a certain amount of work. But all the little tweaks and tricks that are required to get such a model really working - I doubt he was able to completely identify and incorporate them. For example, one issue regarding smooth running characteristics, which he explicitely asked me about, is NOT addressed in the instructions. Now who will people blame if their model doesn't work properly? At least partly me. Had they received the files directly from me, we could have cleared up things from the beginning - for, as I wrote, technical advice is included.

To be honest, I'm tired of discussions like this. I'll be silent in this thread now, but will also draw my consequences regarding the future availability of detailed insight into upcoming models.

Hi Sven

I am sorry that you think I was trying to steal you design or take any credit for it.
I made the instructions because I like your designs and would like to make instructions so others could build your trains.
I respect your oppinion and have removed the instructions frorm my homepage.
I thought you would not mind my instructions as you shared the LDD files on Bricksafe.
I assumed wrong and I am sorry for the trouble.
It was never my intention to hoodwink you.
 

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I promised to remain silent now, but have to break my promise...
@snakebyte Thanks for your prompt reaction. I accept your apologies, so this particular case is closed for me.

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1 hour ago, Tenderlok said:

Thanks for your prompt reaction. I accept your apologies, so this particular case is closed for me.

Phew.

That was close. I believe your view, Sven, on this is very, very honorable. Kind of from an above, wise perspective. I like that very much.

@snakebyte Folks - >talk< to each other. It is so easy. But talk before you "do" something. Before you make - whatever it is - publicly available - simply talk. Ask for permission. In the sense of being kind - and much more importantly: In the sense of being honest. Don't take your actions as granted. People can't read your mind. Whenever there is an idea of making this world - our train world - a better place: Ask yourself: When I take something from someone and turn it into something else: Who came up with the "something" in the first place? That is so much of a difference!

When I was taking Ben Benekes BR23 mdp file he provided (for free and without any notice on his BrickShelf folder) and made an instruction, I asked him whether or not he would like to see this publicly available. He did nor only say yes, but I got so many tips and tricks, so many details from him - it was an experience I don't want to miss.

And I bet (a lot of … whatever) that @Tenderlok would have done the exact same thing.

All the best,

Thorsten  

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Ahh, Jimbricked, already stolen design from me as well...

Got this from him when YT took down his video containing my stuff:

"Alright Raáb Donát,

 
I don't know who the megabluck you are you piece of trash, but when I find out, it's over for you! You claimed Copyright on my video for my YouTube channel. I want a full explanation! My YouTube Channel is Jimbricked! "
Edited by Ashi Valkoinen

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21 hours ago, Ashi Valkoinen said:

Ahh, Jimbricked, already stolen design from me as well...

Got this from him when YT took down his video containing my stuff:

"Alright Raáb Donát,

 
I don't know who the megabluck you are you piece of trash, but when I find out, it's over for you! You claimed Copyright on my video for my YouTube channel. I want a full explanation! My YouTube Channel is Jimbricked! "

I guess he learned his "Don't steal things from other people" lesson just long enough to lose people's attention. Good to know that he's not just gone back to shamelessly stealing and profiting off other people's work, now he's throwing threats into the mix... Anyone still think this is just a naive misguided kid who doesn't understand that stealing is wrong?

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Noo, it is older, happened around the end of year 2017.  When I started to read this discussion I was pretty sure it will be him.

I wasn't wrong.

He told me that he found my design on some of TLC's pages and he didn't know that it may be protected. For first I didn't report his video BUT wrote a comment under the video that the design is not belonging to him then he deleted the comment without any replies or notice so I flagged the video and sent proof to YouTube that it is actually my design (it was easy since I announced that MOC on YT, just not in 2017, but 2011...).

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Ah, I understand.
Then, inappropriate as his actions were, nevertheless I think we should forget about that case. He seems to have learned his lesson since then.

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Sorry to hear such experiences...

The same kind of thing happened to me. I once found a guy on a french lego event running a train of my design (with ugly but cheaper to build modifications).

I first started joking with this guy thinking he just copied my design for his personnal use. But he didn't understand my joke. Discussing further with him, he told me that he bought the model on ebay.

I found back the seller on ebay, selling instructions of 2 or 3 of my designs abd other desugn I'm quite sure they are stolen too. Still with ugly modifications. But I cannot be mistaken, they are my designs as they have caracteristics such as livery details if my region quite rare.

I didn't contact this seller yet. I should probably but don't know how telling him stopping selling my models.. 

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@Zed_43 Is this person still selling other people's MOCs on ebay? Then I think you should contact him via ebay messenger and ask him politely, but unmistakably to stop his business. If he doesn't respond appropriately, report him to ebay (in which case you should be able to prove that his models are actually of your design, of course).

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I have a different perspective than most others in this thread, as people can download pdf instructions for most of my creations for free online in collaboration with a fellow Danish LUG member who did the instructions.

Honestly, it gives me more satisfaction knowing that people like my creations enough that the want to build them themselves than the pride of owning something unique. After all, I can just make a new one at anytime if that is what I want. I’m very much into the sharing mentality.

Of course, this is not possible if you want to monetize your creations and you still have to deal with others trying to. At least it is easier to stop that by pointing to the free instructions. 

And the commercial aspect of mostly Danish stuff is also quite limited or maybe my creations are not quite viable enough ?

So I see my creations a lof of places. Setups at home, online, on facebook,  in events like LEGO World and store exhibitions often without my participations and so on and on. Sometimes in another livery and sometimes modified. Sometimes those are not to my taste but often they are.

I only ask that people acknowledge me as the original creator and don’t try to scam other people by (or when) selling them.

So far most people have actually been quite respectful about this. Asking for permission before events or store exhibitons and even made sure I get some of the “compensations” if any.

That being said, it is still a bit strange to ses my creations in the hands of other people and without much control from my side and I do have and have had some rather unpleasant experiences along the way.

The worst was when someone put several of my creations (albeit modified) on LEGO Ideas as his own and couldn’t be reasoned with until LEGO got invovled and ended up banning him alltogether.

I also see my creations being sold privately as unique from time to time with no mention of me or the free instructions. This hurts and kind of pisses me off everytime. But there is not much I can do about that really.

All this being said, if some unscrupulous company or person took my creations and began selling them commercially as their own without my involvement I would get just as angry as the rest of you guys and do my best to stop it.

 

Edited by dtomsen

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@dtomsen

I do not think that your perspective is so different from the most others here. I have seen your instructions and models online, and I highly appreciate your work.

My personal focus is more on creating a Model and taking photos of it, I am not interested in creating building instructions. But if anyone would ask to create it for me, why should I say no?

 

I think what suffers most pain, is when someone sells Instructions or rebuilds of your models and do not even metion you as the original creator. I allready started to publish my MOC pics under CC BY license, so everyone can see what I exspect when using my work for own purpose.

 

But sometimes it is not easy to find the original creator of a MOC.

E.g. years ago I found a Railcar-MOC somewhere in the www. It attracted me quite a lot, so I started to rebuild it from two or three pictures I found. I implemeted lights and started to use it on exhibitions. When the discussion started about a year ago here in the forum, I started intensiv search for the original creator and after hours of search I found that it was @Sérgio. So I asked him via flickr-pm for permission to copy his car, and he granted it (thank you Sérgio). He only asked me to mention him as the original creator. And I think exactly thas is the point!

Lego is intended to rebuild things you see. That also includes MOC´s. I "copy" things now for the last 35 years, starting with the gorgeous Lego Idea books in my childhood. And the most people here are aware of that. So nearly no one will exspect that his creation will not be copied sooner or later. But a small hint to the original creator should alsways be a natural consequence.

 

However, while adding credits to someone is relatively easy with pictures, how will you do e.g. at exhibitions? I have not found any good solution to do so yet. So if anybody has a suggestion, I would welcome a good discussion :wink:

 

regards

BrickMusher

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@Zed_43 Can you post a link to the suspected seller so we can see what's there?

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1 hour ago, BrickMusher said:

@dtomsen

I do not think that your perspective is so different from the most others here. I have seen your instructions and models online, and I highly appreciate your work.

My personal focus is more on creating a Model and taking photos of it, I am not interested in creating building instructions. But if anyone would ask to create it for me, why should I say no?

 

I think what suffers most pain, is when someone sells Instructions or rebuilds of your models and do not even metion you as the original creator. I allready started to publish my MOC pics under CC BY license, so everyone can see what I exspect when using my work for own purpose.

 

But sometimes it is not easy to find the original creator of a MOC.

E.g. years ago I found a Railcar-MOC somewhere in the www. It attracted me quite a lot, so I started to rebuild it from two or three pictures I found. I implemeted lights and started to use it on exhibitions. When the discussion started about a year ago here in the forum, I started intensiv search for the original creator and after hours of search I found that it was @Sérgio. So I asked him via flickr-pm for permission to copy his car, and he granted it (thank you Sérgio). He only asked me to mention him as the original creator. And I think exactly thas is the point!

Lego is intended to rebuild things you see. That also includes MOC´s. I "copy" things now for the last 35 years, starting with the gorgeous Lego Idea books in my childhood. And the most people here are aware of that. So nearly no one will exspect that his creation will not be copied sooner or later. But a small hint to the original creator should alsways be a natural consequence.

 

However, while adding credits to someone is relatively easy with pictures, how will you do e.g. at exhibitions? I have not found any good solution to do so yet. So if anybody has a suggestion, I would welcome a good discussion :wink:

 

regards

BrickMusher

Thanks, and thanks for the CC BY license info :thumbup:
My focus is also mostly on creating and showing my own creations whether digitally or built with bricks so I highly appreciate that another person is willing to do building instructions for them as long as the work is good, accessible and free.
Luckily I have an formal collaboration in place for eactly that as I have no interest in doing them myself whatsoever :grin: 
The collaboration came into place because I had shared some of my LLD files privately and began seeing them online and running into people exhibitioning the same models as me at events. Really awkward.
Also a lot of people began asking for
instructions or simply reverse-engineering them.
So somewhat a means to an end.
I did had to think hard about monetizing then and in the future. You can´t do both.
And we still haven't found an answer to who owns the rights to the actual building instructions themselves...worth thinking about.

Regarding 
exhibitions, I have politely asked people to ask for my permission beforehand for the bigger or the commercial ones. Whether they mention me as the orignal creator or not is up to them but most do.
Usually in person but sometimes displayed in text beside the model(s).
And my rather singular foucs on Danish stuff is also so well-known in our (nationwide) LUG that someone surely will point that fact out if not.
I also don't share new creations anymore before I have either shown them online or at exhibitions myself first.
I'm not quite sure how well this would work in larger countries with more exhibitions like the US or even Germany.
But our global community does help somewhat though, just look at this thread :classic:

BTW, it still pains me that Eurobricks of all places has LEGO Train 12 Volt's lovely but slight MOD of my DSB KØF in the Train Tech MOC Index instead of my orginal shown earlier here.
Not his fault though, he even points it out.
I have repeatedly written the moderators but never heard back. Go figure :hmpf_bad:

Edited by dtomsen

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52 minutes ago, dtomsen said:

I have repeatedly written the moderators but never heard back. Go figure :hmpf_bad:

Given that the Trains sections has had this hideous pink bunnies banner for a number of years now I wonder if there even is a moderator for this corner of Eurobricks...

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1 hour ago, dtomsen said:

[...]in the Train Tech MOC Index [...]

40 minutes ago, Duq said:

Given that the Trains sections has had this hideous pink bunnies banner for a number of years now I wonder if there even is a moderator for this corner of Eurobricks... 

Of course there is (JopieK), but the MOC Index apparently hasn't been updated any more since 2013.

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Well, I guess this is just the way of the ‘net sometimes :shrug_confused:

But sad that the MOC index isn’t updated anymore as there has been many great trains MOCs since and it seems that the quality keeps rising all the time, probably inspired and encouraged by those MOCs already done.

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3 hours ago, BrickMusher said:

@dtomsen

I do not think that your perspective is so different from the most others here. I have seen your instructions and models online, and I highly appreciate your work.

My personal focus is more on creating a Model and taking photos of it, I am not interested in creating building instructions. But if anyone would ask to create it for me, why should I say no?

 

I think what suffers most pain, is when someone sells Instructions or rebuilds of your models and do not even metion you as the original creator. I allready started to publish my MOC pics under CC BY license, so everyone can see what I exspect when using my work for own purpose.

 

But sometimes it is not easy to find the original creator of a MOC.

E.g. years ago I found a Railcar-MOC somewhere in the www. It attracted me quite a lot, so I started to rebuild it from two or three pictures I found. I implemeted lights and started to use it on exhibitions. When the discussion started about a year ago here in the forum, I started intensiv search for the original creator and after hours of search I found that it was @Sérgio. So I asked him via flickr-pm for permission to copy his car, and he granted it (thank you Sérgio). He only asked me to mention him as the original creator. And I think exactly thas is the point!

Lego is intended to rebuild things you see. That also includes MOC´s. I "copy" things now for the last 35 years, starting with the gorgeous Lego Idea books in my childhood. And the most people here are aware of that. So nearly no one will exspect that his creation will not be copied sooner or later. But a small hint to the original creator should alsways be a natural consequence.

 

However, while adding credits to someone is relatively easy with pictures, how will you do e.g. at exhibitions? I have not found any good solution to do so yet. So if anybody has a suggestion, I would welcome a good discussion :wink:

 

regards

BrickMusher

I'm also thinking that people here (and myself) have the same point of view. Being copied for personnal use is not the problem, it prouves that your creations are appreciated. Being mentioned as the original creator is obviously required to my eyes.

But I think the fact we find unfair, is the fact that someone is making money with your work behind your back.

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On 5/4/2019 at 12:56 PM, BrickMusher said:

(...)

E.g. years ago I found a Railcar-MOC somewhere in the www. It attracted me quite a lot, so I started to rebuild it from two or three pictures I found. I implemeted lights and started to use it on exhibitions. When the discussion started about a year ago here in the forum, I started intensiv search for the original creator and after hours of search I found that it was @Sérgio. So I asked him via flickr-pm for permission to copy his car, and he granted it (thank you Sérgio). He only asked me to mention him as the original creator. And I think exactly thas is the point!

(...)

You are welcome, i'm curious to see your improvement by the way :)

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On 5/4/2019 at 7:56 AM, BrickMusher said:

@dtomsen

However, while adding credits to someone is relatively easy with pictures, how will you do e.g. at exhibitions? I have not found any good solution to do so yet. So if anybody has a suggestion, I would welcome a good discussion :wink:

regards

BrickMusher

Ive thought this same myself.  I have two trains i intend to build that I did not design.  The one will be a staticly place kenetic model ... I intend to have a small poster next to this train with the history of the real train and a mention of the designer.  

However as with the shay I have reworked.  I plan to verbally tell any who ask as it will be constantly in motion on the layout.

Plus its easier to verbally say what changes you made to their design and what elements are your own design.

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The easiest solution is to not bring other people's designs to shows... But I do it myself as well. I have Ben's BR23, Holger's BR80 and Blokbricks' BR99 running along with my own trains.

At brick.ie we use 'MOC cards' with a picture of the model and a short description of the model, the builder, how many pieces etc. It's easy to mention the designer if you are displaying models designed by someone else.

 

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I have a couple of locos that started out life as someone else's design that I take to shows. They've both had modifications (in one case so extensively, you'd be hard pressed to recognize the original model) but whenever anyone asks about my trains, I'm happy to tell the history of the design. Afterall, how is it any different from running Hornby locos on your exhibition layout? It's the overall effect you're looking for, not a creation that is 100% created by you and you alone.
 

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