Here’s something that has popped up on my feed and also readers emailing in about it but I questioned whether I should post about it or not. You may have heard of a few well-known builders in the LEGO community like The Arvo Brothers, Firas Abu-Jaber, Paul Boratko (CrowKillers), and Bangoo H, many of which have been featured on The Brothers Brick and other LEGO sites. Their LEGO builds are an envy of many builders who have tried to replicate themselves or take inspiration from.
The 29th Guangzhou Toy & Hobby Fair kicked off yesterday and there’s a Chinese “new” brick company who has appeared to be making sets based on the designs of some of the builders I’ve named above. In a post on Facebook, there are images of a company called Xingbao (星堡) who is owned by Meizi Model (美致模型), which is the same company that owns LEPIN, at the convention displaying some of the sets based off of the AFOL designs including The Arvo Brother’s Kaneda’s Bike and Alien, Bangoo H’s Laputa: Castle in the Sky music box, Fira’s Volkswagen Beetle, Ford GT, and Rolls Royce Springfield Roadster, and Paul’s Balisong supercar, just to name a few. It also appears that some of the designers have confirmed to have licensed their models out to the company.
This new company is essentially helping AFOLs who want their models become easier to obtain by their followers who do not have time to BrickLink the parts or whatnot. This whole thing brings on a whole bag of worms with licensing to intellectual properties but more importantly, morals. For LEGO purists, they will most likely not purchase these off-brand sets and try to recreate the models using official LEGO parts to their best of their abilities.
There’s also one other side of the story. If you remember from last year, I did a post about LEPIN starting to produce AFOL designed sets. The designer would basically have their models stolen and would get no compensation whatsoever. Basically Xingbao is reaching out to AFOLs and asking them if they want their models produced and paying them compensation which is a step up but at the end of the day, they are still a knockoff brand. Chances are if you’ve been contacted, they’re already planning on making it through LEPIN.
If you didn’t know yet, BrickLink has a service going for a while where you can sell your MOCs which uses actual LEGO parts. Now that LEGO Ideas has somewhat cracked down on restricting active licenses, will this sway AFOLs to Xingbao who want their models available to the public in an easier way?
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Arguably Lego’s prices have gotten to the stage where another company can make and sell you a set for about 1/3rd the cost and still make them a profit.
Personally tempted to pick up the castle in the sky as it’d probably cost in the region of £200 to just get the pieces from Bricklink – so chances are buying the set would be cheaper.
Wow. I now hate those fan designers. Apparently they don’t care about the Lego Group as a company at all. They just take the cash.
They care about their ideas and design. Lego for them is like clay for artist- just one way to express their ideas. So no, they don’t care about lego any more than lego cares about them. Of course, lego could offer them contract for years and hire them as designers but they didn’t see any prospect in such step but chinese saw it. Time will tell us if lego dropped the ball by neglecting these designers.
Correction: Bricklink has a service where you can sell your or anyone else’s design, even if it uses protected IP without any licensing agreements. Unless the original designer or IP owner make a specific complaint about that model, that is. And to do that, they’d actually have to know about, and regularly peruse, the listings. In other words, pretty much anything goes.
As for this, there’s still the fairly high degree of chance that one or more of the designs they choose to produce will include parts that are still under patent by The LEGO Company. For instance, the super-rare red X-Pod lids that the Arvo brothers used on their Kaneda’s bike MOC, which were introduced in 2004, still have another seven years left under patent in the US. Therefore, it would be illegal to sell that set here. Not really sure what else might be involved, but regular cheese wedges have the same seven years left on their patent, and double cheeses have an additional five years of protection.
Does LEGO get a patent for every single new element they design? I don’t think they do. I did a brief Google Patents search and found some elements, but not every single element introduced in that time. Unless they file for, and obtain a valid patent on each new element design, it doesn’t happen automatically, and there wouldn’t be a patent.
Right, patents (unlike copyright) are not automatic. And maybe cheese wedges wouldn’t qualify for a patent, but I’d think there’s a chance that the X-Pod containers might.
Anyways, pretty much every part these days has ©LEGO molded into the surface somewhere (even lightsaber blades have it on the ends now). If patents don’t cover it, I’m pretty sure that does, because that’s the only explanation I could figure out for why clones like C3 and BuiltToRule vanished off the shelves so fast. I remember noting that they were using very recent LEGO shapes, based on the box art that I’d see sometimes when browsing the LEGO aisle at various stores.
Does anyone know if the pieces have LEGO written on the top? Is it easy enough to distinguish between official LEGO pieces and these knockoffs?
I’m pretty sure that at least with Lepin it’s obvious with some minor examination that it’s not LEGO. I believe actually using Lego brand name on their products would violate even the loose copyright laws of some Asian nations, and cause them loads of problems.
Have you examined lepin bricks?? They are pretty much the same as lego. I bought the Lepin Medieval Market to check the quality and i was very surprised that its pretty much like lego. The colours are good, the clutch is very good with only a few defective/problematic bricks. If you build the same lego and lepin set i bet you could not tell the difference.
Thats the main reason lego is going after lepin, because they know theirs bricks are good quality. Many other chinese companies clone lego, but they are prettu much all crap, so lego dont see them in the same light as lepin.
I love lego, they were my favorite toy as a kid and i still have most of my sets from that time. But, at the end of the day, its plastic bricks. I refuse to pay that much for plastic bricks.
It’s very odd. While these companies think nothing of using Intellectual Property without permission, for some reason they do respect Lego’s brand trademark, and DO NOT use the Lego name on the top of studs. This is the first thing I look for every time I get a figure from Ebay, to make sure it’s not a fake.
Be careful, ebay is flodded with lego original figures modified to represent more expensive ones, for instance deadpool or lando from cloud city. So when checking always ask seller not if figure is lego original but if figure is from certain set or if figure is in original non-modified state. If it was modded you can contest it by ebay and paypall protection as not coresponding to one offered.
This is true. Some custom pad printers like Onlinesailin and Christo have printed customs that look very similar. Cloud City Boba Fett, Green Lantern and Bizzaro. If you compare pictures though they do have slight differences.
I often read how LEGO got so expensive but I see there’s hardly anyone having a understanding for that.
A company does produce items mainly for its own interest in profit and growth and not for your own comfort. Later might be different for a crowdfunding project or a startup, not an well established company.
Chinese companies compete far better compared to western companies because of low wages and an overabundance of workforce and yes, LEGO might be highly automized, yet, again it thrives for profit.
Now on the case of Lepin and Xingbao – I’d appreciate competition on the market for brick built sets, however, then those companies should really come up with original ideas and not 1:1 knock-offs of existing LEGO sets, LEGO IDEAS creations or unauthorized IDEAS/MOC entries.
And sometimes there’s something you just can’t have.
Impressive, in just 5 years Chinese companies have really become strong competition to lego in Asia. This is great step for all people interested more in design then lego as a brand. Asian ip laws in general are more loose and not without reason, this improves both internal and external competition and results are here- we could wait until the end of our lifetime to see lego castle in the sky but for the ones caring about idea more than being brand slaves, this will do.
This is Japanese approach from 60′-70′, first awful knock-off, then involving insecure new design and then full competing. Seeing asia as more and more importaint marjet for movie producers, let’s not be surprised if lepin obtain full license for marvel in 5-10 years. And yes, that will increase their price but will still be competitive with seriosly inflated lego prices.
Also I notice in this excellent blog reference to lepin more and more often, also being indication they are force that can’t be neglected anylonger. Well, lego wanted to further increase profit margine by moving production to china, we got awfull polybags minifigure quality, I got clark kent superman with cracked thorso and lego got competitor that is getting more and more intimidating. Eventually true winners are consumers. And I am preparing to purchase my first chinese brand bricks as this castle in the sky looks magnificent.
I think this might be the tipping point for some licensees (like Marvel, Disney et al) to finally prod and join Lego into taking legal action against these counterfeit manufacturers. I’m a little sad that some AFOLs are helping these companies in any way.
Well this was going to happen eventually.
I do have very mixed feelings about it, but do think it is news that should be reported on. I also think it’s always possible something good may come out of it.
I like to see that they are offering the designers money. I don’t really begrudge the designers for taking the money either. I do believe that Lego has missed the boat in not working out a deal with these guys. I agree with the poster who pointed out that Lego hasn’t really done their part in showing that they care.
Lego could also easily make a deal with these guys, agreeing to sell them the parts they need to build multiple sets. OR Lego could pay them to release their instructions for free, thus creating a demand for more Lego. Heck, instructions for original creations could even be made available from the Lego website. All of these are win-win.
The fact of the matter is Lego is learning a valuable lesson. If you won’t sell products to consumers someone else will. With things like the SDCC mini-figures I have less than zero sympathy for Lego. For the adult and the things they can’t license, I have a lot more understanding. They are just going to have to find creative ways to combat that.
So…are you saying that Lego should pay every fan designer who submits a project on Lego Ideas? it looks like you are saying that all fan designers should get credit from Lego for their creations. Does that mean that if I go and build a Lego model right now I should get paid for it? NO!
I see no reason for Lego to have to pay or support every fan designer on Lego Ideas or elsewhere. That’s the “everybody gets a medal for participating” mindset.
Lego has no requirement to sell anyone’s sets.
But at the same time, those designers have no obligation to release their mocs under Lego. Since Lego won’t, other people will, simple as that. At least this might mean fewer Chinese companies will steal random people’s ideas and profit off them. I don’t think it’s wrong for people to use a Chinese company to produce their stuff.
I believe Lego used to have a thing where you could buy peoples Mocs and all needed bricks, but they got rid of it for some reason.
That is true, but I still don’t understand how the designers find this morally okay. Everyone knows these knock of companies would be illegal if they were based in the U.S.
(By the way, the thing you are referencing was called Lego Factory. It was a predecessor to Lego Ideas/Cussoo, and I think it was shut down for being to expensive to operate.)
They’re also illegal in China, actually, there’s just poor enforcement and high amounts of corruption.
Although, if Lepin or this company or whatever produced ‘only’ MOCs by designers, and didn’t copy the designs of Lego itself (as well as copying designers without their consent) I’m pretty sure it would be legal. Lego can only patent certain pieces.
Yea Lego Factory is the thing. I bought something off it once, I think.
I think you’re forgetting that being a Moc designer isn’t a pre-requisite for morals. Either they think it’s moral because this allows people cheap access to their stuff, or they don’t care because they need/want more money.
That makes sense from the recent court hearings.
Yeah, I guess I’d wouldn’t be mad at the companies if they did that.
I didn’t know it existed before it was over. 😛
That is true, but I would say that anybody buying anything off of a company that is illegal has a poor moral compass.
what about Mega bloks?
That is a different story altogether for multiple reasons. I have no quarrel with MB.
US is not the world, you know there are other countries as well 🙂
True, but you know what I mean.
Paul Boratko says he was not involved with this. That his design was simply stolen without his knowledge and consent. So it is not clear which of these builders actually have a collaboration with this company, and which are simply stolen designs. The whole thing is so murky.
Really? But I just heard another story.
That’s what Sariel said. He talked with Paul personally, and he said the Chinese company stole and used his models without his consent.
if i owned a production company, i would not be making ripoffs. id be making my own super heroes, my own mechs, my own cars and motorcycles. like why make spiderman minifigures and sets when you can make you own creations? the akira bike set MIGHTY tempting…
You mean, if you owned a production company(let’s ignore founding and setup) and have designers to come up with original ideas that sell sky-high or wads of cash to get licences, like you’d need for your Akira bike.
This is good news and bad. But then again Lego seems to always pick the safest and worst selection of ideas that people create. Now bring on that voltron than someone created.
While it would be great to have some of those amazing AFOL-designed sets (like the bike from Akira), it’s important to remember that these knock-offs won’t use high quality ABS like genuine Lego sets. Perhaps more importantly, by purchasing these sets, we would be subsidizing the continued IP theft by Chinese companies. Ultimately, we all pay for their unwillingness to develop and create their own original ideas and products.
Bangoo H also says he absolutely was not contacted by the Chinese company and that they stole his design without his permission:
“I’m seriously considering to stop publicly distributing instructions for my MOCs. This is only a tip of the iceberg.
Knockoff copies of my Laputa MOC are already being sold on TaoBao by more than 20 unauthorized merchants. If someone had actually bothered to approach me for a deal, I would have probably reached out to Ghibli to work out a proper licensing deal to make things legit.”
Source: http://www.clien.net/cs2/bbs/board.php?bo_table=cm_lego&wr_id=1494695 (Korean)
I messaged all the MOC designers to see if they consented. This seriously ticks me off, especially if the fans consented to this. You’d think AFOLs would be the ones who most opposed those who damaged LEGO’s brand, not the ones who aid and abet them!