Stormythos Posted August 21, 2019 (edited) Hi there, I am new to Eurobricks but felt like I needed to bring attention to an issue affecting the online LEGO fan community. Some backstory: Around this time last year, I discovered the instructions for one of my MOCs (that I shared for free) being sold on eBay without my permission. I discovered that this seller was also selling MOCs from other creators. I tried my best to find and notify the true owners of each MOC. In the end, the eBay store seems to have been shut down. During this time, I was linked to this EB thread involving a similar issue. Last week, someone notified me about the instructions for one of my MOCs (including parts to build it) was being sold on eBay, along with other builders' instructions (some including parts). Again, I tried my best to find and notify the true owners of each MOC being sold. This seller has since removed all MOC listings (I can provide links if necessary). I also discovered another account selling instructions for one of my MOCs that I had shared for free. I messaged them, they apologised and removed the listing, only to then begin selling someone else's free instructions. I have also found an account on Etsy selling the physical model of one of my MOCs. This seems to violate Etsy's handmade policy as they were not the original designer of the item (I have reported the item but have not received a response / no action taken). I messaged the owner, politely asking them to remove the listing, explaining it violates Etsy's policy and so on, and they blocked me. I decided to do more searching and, unfortunately, the issue is more prominent than I thought. Take this eBay account for example thetrendslab. Pretty much all listings are MOCs shared online by fan builders. Spoiler thetrendslab - Batman Batmobile 1989 CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS ONLY for LEGO Bricks (Batman)https://www.ebay.com/itm/Batman-Batmobile-1989-CUSTOM-INSTRUCTIONS-ONLY-for-LEGO-Bricks-Batman/312554244521?hash=item48c5af49a9:g:pAgAAOSwtYZcM9B3 Neits89 - hachiroku24's 1989 Batmobile (with instructions)https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=60128 hachiroku24 - Lego 1989 Batmobile from Tim Burton's Batmanhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_a6fyFBpE8 --- thetrendslab - LEGO ARCHITECTURE NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS ONLY for LEGO Brickshttps://www.ebay.com/itm/LEGO-ARCHITECTURE-NOTRE-DAME-CATHEDRAL-CUSTOM-INSTRUCTIONS-ONLY-for-LEGO-Bricks/312443267237?hash=item48bf11e8a5:g:3hAAAOSw4sxcdGzz jmwentz - Notre Dame Cathedralhttps://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=65883 --- Neits89 - hachiroku24's Jurassic Park Ford Explorer (with instructions)https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=59712 hachiroku24 - Lego Jurassic Park Ford Explorer (second) MOChttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCBicDs_S30 thetrendslab - Jurassic Park World Explorer Car CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS ONLY for LEGO Brickshttps://www.ebay.com/itm/Jurassic-Park-World-Explorer-Car-CUSTOM-INSTRUCTIONS-ONLY-for-LEGO-Bricks/312572099650?hash=item48c6bfbc42:g:8z0AAOSwyQVcdHN9 --- thetrendslab - Jurassic Park World Jeep Wrangler Car CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS ONLY for LEGO Brickshttps://www.ebay.com/itm/Jurassic-Park-World-Jeep-Wrangler-Car-CUSTOM-INSTRUCTIONS-ONLY-for-LEGO-Bricks/312450846562?hash=item48bf858f62:g:aMYAAOSw0ntcdHUY Neits89 - hachiroku24's Jurassic Park Jeep Wrangler (with instructions)https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=66537 hachiroku24 - Lego Jeep Wrangler from Jurassic Park MOChttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVn2W1SWCOE --- thetrendslab - LEGO FORTNITE ALL TERRAIN KART CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS ONLY for LEGO Brickshttps://www.ebay.com/itm/LEGO-FORTNITE-ALL-TERRAIN-KART-CUSTOM-INSTRUCTIONS-ONLY-for-LEGO-Bricks/312700953873?hash=item48ce6de511:g:6x4AAOSw3tBdLKaP Ronski85 - Fortnite ATK Golf Cart Lego instructionshttps://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=93488 --- thetrendslab - Breaking Bad RV CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS ONLY for LEGO Bricks (Breaking Bad)https://www.ebay.com/itm/Breaking-Bad-RV-CUSTOM-INSTRUCTIONS-ONLY-for-LEGO-Bricks-Breaking-Bad/312440065545?hash=item48bee10e09:g:P5YAAOSw7mNcdHHT Neits89 - hachiroku24's Breaking Bad RV (with instructions)https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=61158 hachiroku24 - Building the Breaking Bad's RV with Legohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcpvGD5OnA8 --- thetrendslab - LEGO Herbie Volkswagen Beetle CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS ONLY for LEGO Bricks (Herbie)https://www.ebay.com/itm/LEGO-Herbie-Volkswagen-Beetle-CUSTOM-INSTRUCTIONS-ONLY-for-LEGO-Bricks-Herbie/312443267856?hash=item48bf11eb10:g:QNEAAOSwI7ZcdHMz Neits89 - hachiroku24's Volkswagen Beetle Herbie (with instructions)https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=63079 hachiroku24 - Lego VW Beetle Herbie (HARDEST CAR I HAVE EVER BUILT)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-85FN40UoXE --- Official LEGO set 70906-1: The Joker Notorious Lowrider fin761 - LEGO 70906 THE JOKER™ NOTORIOUS LOWRIDERhttps://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=91709 thetrendslab - The Joker Notorious Lowrider Car Batman CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS ONLY for LEGO Brickshttps://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Joker-Notorious-Lowrider-Car-Batman-CUSTOM-INSTRUCTIONS-ONLY-for-LEGO-Bricks/312701173593?hash=item48ce713f59:g:W3MAAOSwqYxdLP7x --- Stehly - 31052 Jessy's Customised RVhttps://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=74056 thetrendslab - Vacation Getaways RV CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS ONLY for LEGO Bricks (Pimp My Ride)https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vacation-Getaways-RV-CUSTOM-INSTRUCTIONS-ONLY-for-LEGO-Bricks-Pimp-My-Ride/312533396799?hash=item48c4712d3f:g:3gMAAOSwVN1cUiGr --- Originally designed by Legohaulichttps://ideas.lego.com/projects/ef31dc6a-6a39-4c8d-8dfa-57c64550c390 woebetide - Stitchhttps://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=92535 thetrendslab - LEGO DISNEY STITCH CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS ONLY for LEGO Brickshttps://www.ebay.com/itm/LEGO-DISNEY-STITCH-CUSTOM-INSTRUCTIONS-ONLY-for-LEGO-Bricks/312691196802?hash=item48cdd90382:g:ukQAAOSwigpdI7eC --- From official LEGO set 75953-1: Hogwarts Whomping Willow thetrendslab - Harry Potter Flying Car CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS ONLY for LEGO Bricks (Harry Potter)https://www.ebay.com/itm/Harry-Potter-Flying-Car-CUSTOM-INSTRUCTIONS-ONLY-for-LEGO-Bricks-Harry-Potter/312629687374?hash=item48ca2e744e:g:l48AAOSwUTZcdHYQ Neits89 - 2018 Ford Anglia (75953)https://www.bricklink.com/v3/studio/design.page?idModel=61292 I thought I could bring attention to this issue as it's quite disappointing and frustrating that there's people out there taking advantage of and exploiting the generous and friendly LEGO fan community. What can be done? I have tried contacting eBay but they cannot take any action without 'legal, valid proof and documentation of property rights'. It seems that selling digitally delivered goods is against eBay's policies, and yet these listings consisting of only digital files remain available. Apologies if this post is inappropriate or if the links are not allowed. Edited August 21, 2019 by Stormythos Formatting, grammar Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ShaydDeGrai Posted August 21, 2019 There are assorted laws on the books in the US and recognized by international treaty to protect the creators of intellectual property (IP) from, what amounts to, theft. Which laws pertain and how strictly they get enforced depend on what the IP in question is. There are Patents which are the hardest to get but offer the most protection - but these are really for original, non-obvious, engineering inventions (as opposed to scientific discoveries or mathematical proofs - though the past couple decades has seen a lot of abuse of patent law by software and bio-tech companies...). There are Trademarks, which are really more for branding. And, there are copyrights which focus on more artistic endeavors. You can't copyright an idea, concept or fragment of a larger work, but you can copyright an expression of such an idea or concept provided that it is sufficiently different from prior art. Separate expressions of related art are also eligible for copyright, for example a composer can copyright a song (or technically the sheet music for a song) and a musician can (with the composer's permission) make a recording of herself playing that song and the recording is also eligible for a copyright because, in the latter case, it is the artists specific interpretation and performance that is being protected, not the lyrics or sequence of notes described in the sheet music. Original works in the US have two layers of copyright protection. A de facto copyright and a registered copyright. By and of themselves, they don't really do much, but establishing a copyright _before_ a piece of intellectual property hits the public domain gives you standing to take (or at least threaten to take) legal action later. A de facto copyright is the easiest to establish (but also the weakest from a legal standpoint. All it takes is for the author of an eligible work to openly declare who owns the IP, when it was created, and what right they choose to cede to the public. Writers do this all the time when they start a manuscript with a simple by-line along the lines of: (c) 2019, ShaydDeGrai, All rights reserved. Photographers will often do likewise photoshopping this in the corner or adding it to the metaData of the photo (if the format allows) Once the work has been clearly labeled with such a brand it is, technically, copyrighted. Some authors, for extra protection will mail a copy to themselves and when it comes back leave it unopened in the envelop so the postage mark acts as a government certification of WHEN the work was complete - but recent case law has brought into question if this is really necessary. A de facto copyright always precedes a registered one (and protects draft copies, etc.). When the author deems the work to be complete/finalized, s/he has the option of filling out some paperwork (readily downloadable on-line) and sending a copy to the US Copyright Office an a processing fee (last time I checked it was $55 USD) and they enter you into a database and send you a certificate of ownership for your IP. With copyright in hand, you now have standing to take (or at least threaten) legal action against people (and abettors - hosting web sites, eBay, etc) who violate the terms of use (which you pretty much define since it's your IP) An actual lawsuit would probably cost you more than its worth, but the threat of legal action (with proper proof of legal standing) would likely be enough to get in-house counsels at places like eBay, WordPress and GoDaddy to advise their people to crack down on specific abusers and possible get some users banned (not that they won't be back under some other name in a month) - its a copyright writ, not a magic wand. So for future documents, you might want to consider adding de facto copyright statements to your instructions (depending on how you generate the instructions this can be easy or hard. Acrobat makes it easy for PDFs. Photoshop (or tools like GIMP) can also watermark individual photos and diagrams to make it harder for people to strip off such markings. I don't know if tools like LDD or Stud.io have provisions to inject copyright info (but I would have included that feature if I'd designed them, so who knows). If you think it's worth it to you, you can formally register your document for the price of a midrange Lego kit - again this step is not technically necessary, but strengthens your legal position in the long run. Once you've done that, you are entitled to sell or give away copies to whomever you like but any recipients can not, legally, duplicate and redistribute your work without your permission. They _can_ pass on or loan their copy to someone else (just like I can buy a physical book and, when I'm done with it, give it to someone else) but the original recipient has to forfeit his/her ownership (so I I mailed a PDF to a friend, I'm legally obliged to delete my copy once I know my friend got the attachment.) Of course enforcement is the big issue, but that's what lawyers are for and we never seem to run out of those. There is a thing called fair-use copyright (and this goes back to what I mentioned above about fragments of a larger work. Under fair-use any legal recipient of the IP _can_ copy _parts_ of your work for personal use (like photocopying part of a textbook for a study session, or quoting a passage in a term paper) so long as publicly acknowledge the source. You, as the copyright owner don't own every word and picture that you used in your document, you own the specific expression of the ideas that those words and pictures ad up to and that ownership needs to be expressly acknowledged as soon as an excerpt is large enough to be uniquely identified as part of _your_ work. So, let's say you used a really clever building technique in steps 34-37, someone could legally share just those steps while giving you credit (but they couldn't sell that information without giving you a cut). Now the bad news, once something hits the public domain, it's very difficult to take back (legally speaking). If your original instructions didn't identify you as the author (copyright notice, watermark in photos, etc.) or didn't require someone to acknowledge your rights prior to download, then you're on much weaker legal grounds. Hosting companies and places like eBay are far less likely to take sides if they catch even the slightest whiff that they are going to get mired down in "he said/she said" style with no hard, irrefutable (or in a digital world, un-fake-able) proof on either side. I know people who insist that they independently invented the plate-based sphere technique (often called a Lowell Sphere, or a Bram's Sphere after the guy who posted a program to generate instructions for them ) years before Bruce Lowell posed one on his website. Maybe they did, maybe it _should_ be called an Eaton Sphere or a Smyth Sphere but that boat sailed twenty years ago, history is unlikely to correct itself now (at least nobody's charging for copies of instructions they downloaded from the (free) sphere generator site). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1963maniac Posted August 21, 2019 (edited) 38 minutes ago, ShaydDeGrai said: There are assorted laws on the books in the US and recognized by international treaty to protect the creators of intellectual property (IP) from, what amounts to, theft. Thanks very much for this easy to understand explanation. This is helpful!! I am now not only putting copyright information on every page but also including "All rights reserved". AFOLs enjoy making MOCs and including instructions for public use. What we don't enjoy is the theft of them. Edited August 21, 2019 by 1963maniac Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MAB Posted August 21, 2019 Even if you do copyright instructions, someone can always remake the instructions themselves. If they build someone else's MOC in LDD they can generate them again without copyright warnings. This has happened in the past. Proving something is your work is tough, especially if they change the design even slightly. Worse still if it a third party IP that you are making a design for. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
1963maniac Posted August 21, 2019 1 hour ago, MAB said: If they build someone else's MOC in LDD they can generate them again without copyright warnings. Can this be done from a PDF? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stormythos Posted August 21, 2019 (edited) @ShaydDeGrai First of all, thank you so much for your response. I really appreciate your insight and time. It was my understanding that copyright could only be applied for registered works, but "de facto copyright" seems to be helpful in this case. Would emailing all relevant files to myself at the time of completion be sufficient proof of ownership? I had a 'foreward' in each PDF file that included: "All contents are for personal use only. Any unauthorised duplication, modification, reproduction or sale of this model and/or these instructions in whole or in part is strictly prohibited. LEGO ® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorise or endorse this model and/or these instructions." I had also included 'Stormythos' in the top-right corner of every page. I have since added a watermark to the center of each page. For the time-being, I don't think I will legally register anything as this is just a hobby, but thank you for making me aware of these avenues. I don't mind resharing as long as proper credit is given, but having someone try to make money off of instructions that I had provided for free really rubs me the wrong way. Is there anything I can do against these people selling MOCs that aren't my own? Anything other than reporting the items, messaging the sellers or notifying the original creators? Edited August 21, 2019 by Stormythos Formatting Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mylenium Posted August 22, 2019 14 hours ago, ShaydDeGrai said: There are assorted laws on the books in the US and recognized by international treaty to protect the creators of intellectual property (IP) from, what amounts to, theft. ...*snip*... Long and short: None of this matters unless the person claiming the copyright represents an US-registered legal entity. Instructions aren't even treated as books in many countries just like a MOC may not even fall under any intrinsic art copyright (e.g. here in Germany it's generally treated as a replicable technical process based on a modular building system). Sorry, but you're all wasting your time even pondering the possibilities. This is way more complex than saying "An evil guy just stole my precious instructions and is selling them on eBay." Just suck it up and move on. Mylenium 17 hours ago, Stormythos said: What can be done? Basically nothing. Unless you are terribly rich and have the money and patience to sit through years of litigation, this is utterly pointless. You already got the answer you didn't wanna hear from eBay: Unless you can prove (as in legally sane and court-proof) that a) the files in question truly belong to you and b) you took all technical and legal steps to protect it under whatever your country's copyright laws may be so they may be recognized by international rules according to IPO, a judge won't even bother to open a case and dismiss it right out of hand. Surely publishing stuff on personal blogs and sites like Rebrickable, people not even including persistent copyright disclaimers in their files and so on doesn't make a good basis for any claims other than the idealistic interpretation of the letter of the law... Mylenium Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MAB Posted August 22, 2019 9 hours ago, Stormythos said: Would emailing all relevant files to myself at the time of completion be sufficient proof of ownership? No. 9 hours ago, Stormythos said: I had a 'foreward' in each PDF file that included: "All contents are for personal use only. Any unauthorised duplication, modification, reproduction or sale of this model and/or these instructions in whole or in part is strictly prohibited. LEGO ® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies which does not sponsor, authorise or endorse this model and/or these instructions." That only matters if the person that will go on and sell the design believes you will do anything about it. I also doubt you would get that to stand up in a court. After all, removing some words about the instructions, you are saying "Any unauthorised modification of this model is strictly prohibited." That is implying that a buyer can only build the model exactly as you specific and does not have your permission to modify it, even for their own use. You do really need to split the instructions from the design. 13 hours ago, 1963maniac said: Can this be done from a PDF? Of course. If someone can build a model with real bricks (which is the intention of the instructions) then they can build it in LDD or similar software and hence create their own instructions for it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mylenium Posted August 22, 2019 33 minutes ago, MAB said: I also doubt you would get that to stand up in a court. Of course it wouldn't... Mylenium Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BrickMonkeyMOCs Posted August 23, 2019 Unfortunately this happens quite often, and beyond reporting the seller there's not much that can be done about it. My Technical Pick-Up on Ebay by unknown seller Free instructions for the same model on my website Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gomek Posted August 23, 2019 16 hours ago, BrickMonkeyMOCs said: Unfortunately this happens quite often, and beyond reporting the seller there's not much that can be done about it. My Technical Pick-Up on Ebay by unknown seller Free instructions for the same model on my website Thanks for providing free instructions. The instructions I've found recently on sites like yours and on youtube have really increased my enjoyment of this hobby. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JopieK Posted August 29, 2019 This topic is on instructions not on something else, keep it like that please (that is why I hid some posts). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
