Sven J

Sorry, but I can see only one person doing that by blaming other people publicly. Doing so "officially" as a moderator doesn't make things better. If you think the thread were derailing (which it didn't), give a friendly, but general hint. If you think certain people are going too far (which no one did, or did one of the participants complain?), contact them behind the scenes. But don't pick four and accuse them in public. Over and out. Do what you like, but don't expect any further input from me.

No offense, but: Please read the posts by the people you named instead of just counting them. All of them have made very clear that to improve the EB experience is exactly what they would like to contribute to. But quite naturally, different people have different opinions about the best way to achieve this. And a "needed reminder" is one thing, but picking some people out, naming them "extremely vocal" and basically accusing them to "make things worse" (though these people have stated several times how much they value this exchange of arguments!) is another, and quite the opposite of being respectful and polite. Anyway, I think I've stated my case clear enough and will remain silent now.

Well, I don't think I really like the idea of further dividing theme forums, but it may be a compromise I could work with (as Henry Kissinger said, "A compromise is only fair, workable, and lasting if both parties are equally dissatisfied with it." ). However, it still needs a definition as to when a MOC contains enough 3rd party elements to require being posted in the new sub-subforums; but , as has been said before, this may vary from theme to theme, as some communities already make frequent use of such parts (Train, for example).

That sounds MUCH better than calling someone "extremely vocal"! Thank you Thorsten!

Not sure at all if this should be taken as a compliment... When you open this kind of thread, it should be perfectly okay to discuss in-depth, intensely and maybe even passionately, shouldn't it? If not, then I wonder why even bother to ask for opinions.

It may simply be out of stock.

Further information/explanation of this sentence in the article would be interesting: "However the Court noted that UK law limiting copyright enforcement in industrial designs applied to the facts in the case."

Not by default, but because it is considered as a work of art, with the respective regulations (and as @aFrInati0n pointed out, protection of the tower has expired). I don't know if anyone has tried so far to legally challenge that point of view.

And that's exactly why I am a big fan of that ruling. As I stated, that whole licensing thing, at least when it comes to car models, arose 25-20 years ago. Before, car companies were happy to get free promo by children playing with toy VW, Ferrari, Ford, Mercedes - choose whatever brand you like, And then someone discovered selling "licenses" as a nice additional revenue - for the companies. Not-so-nice additional cost for the consumer. Yes, as long as we're talking about model representations (not functional equivalents to the original thing) and it's not clearly copyright-protected (as is the case with your Eiffel tower example). I think I made it reasonably clear with what I wrote above.

Exactly that.

There's also the right to make models of things that exist in the real world. Ah! But that's the same if, for example, Bluebrixx offers a "Red Italian Sportscar", isn't it? And that was the situation 30 years ago - brand owners were happy to get free promo via toys bearing their name, their logo or having the shape of one of their products. But then unfortunately greed took over and everything had to be "licensed", no matter how crappy it was.

Obviously some users see that differently.

@anothergol My remark was not aimed at stolen/copied MOCs, but on things that would be licensed themes for Lego and have generic names at Bluebrixx. And as long as they don't use copyrighted names or shapes, they are allowed to do that. I am firmly convinced of that, and there are court rulings supporting my view. As you seem to take another stance on this: Then what do you say about all the MOCers who sell (!) instructions for models of cars, planes, Star Wars and other things, with clearly recognizable prototypes and sometimes (often) even using the original brand/franchise name? That would be illegal in your view, wouldn't it?

Wouldn't that something we could all agree on, given that it's kind of a mild evolution of what's already done anyway? I'd like to invite "all those that don't want mixed sub-forums" to give a sketch how a new structure could be like, especially regarding what to do with MOCs. And it would be great if these could address the following issue: If there were separate MOC theme areas for each brand, it would be highly likely that there would be areas with almost zero content for rather a long time. So let's assume that in the next two years there will be only one Classic Space MOC made with Gobricks parts. How can you make sure it won't stay undiscovered and widely ignored in its sub-sub-forum niche? For that would be rather unfair towards the builder, who maybe couldn't even afford building his creation with Lego parts. But that discussion would better belong in the other thread again, I think.

I see what you mean. However, when I look at the subforums I visit most - Train, Town, Technic and Special - there don't seem to be that many tags that couldn't instead have been integrated in the thread title...