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Questions have been raised recently regarding our stance toward the
publication (scanned and posted) of our catalogs, both those intended for
consumers and those for retailers. During my visit earlier this week in
Billund, and also following consultation with Enfield, I obtained
clarification on this issue. (My apologies for not securing this quite as
quickly as I had hoped; often it simply takes time to do things properly.)
This clarification is in keeping with our previously established policy of
Fair Play (see http://www.lego.com/info/fair.asp). The relevant part of this
policy currently states:
"The LEGO Group owns the copyrights to its building instructions, publications
and to the photographs used in our catalogs and on our packages. Copying,
scanning and distributing these materials on the Internet would be an
infringement of our copyrights. Nevertheless, at the present time the LEGO
Group does not object to scanning of limited extracts of these materials in
unaltered form for non-commercial purposes of exchange of information or good
faith commentary."
The assumption underlying this policy is that the materials mentioned
(building instructions, catalogs, and the like) are intended for and freely
available to the public; specifically, that the catalogs mentioned are
consumer catalogs. Consequently, the recent posting of certain scanned
portions of the year 2000 consumer catalog (for the non-commercial purpose of
exchanging information and discussion) is an activity which is acceptable
under the LEGO Group's Fair Play policy.
However, the posting of retailer catalogs is a completely different matter.
Though such catalogs may come to be in the possession of consumers (either by
mistake or improper means), these are not materials which are intended for,
nor are freely available to, the public. Such publications, while perhaps of
interest to the enthusiast community, are communications between our company
and our trade partners and do not belong online. Their release violates the
LEGO Group's copyrights in those catalogs and may also jeopardize the LEGO
Group's ability to protect its other intellectual property rights (i.e. patent
and trademark). Therefore, if such a catalog or other trade material does
happen to fall into your hands, you may NOT publish this off- or on-line in
any form. (Note: even the digitization of analog material is itself a
copyright violation.) Please understand that we must take appropriate steps
to enforce this policy, if necessary.
Larry Pieniazek also asked (in light of last week’s LEGO.com catalog image
episode) if it is our policy that 1) "...only images that can be navigated to
using a series of clicks starting from [your home page] are to be viewable,
and whether or not an image is on your public website is irrelevant?" and 2)
"Is it your position that if an image was reachable that way in the past, but
no longer is, that it is not to be viewable?"
Our position is that only images or material which are clearly accessible
through normal navigational means (i.e. by following hyperlinks from the home
page) are meant for public consumption. If unlinked material should be
“discovered” (either by accident or intent), then the publication of the
location of that material is a copyright violation (one could argue that the
listing of the hyperlink to that material is tantamount to publishing the
material itself). And if material was once available (through normal
navigational means), but no longer is, than it, too, is out of bounds.
We hope that this answers all of your questions (for the moment, at least!)
and kindly ask everyone to respect this policy.
-- Brad
Brad Justus
Senior Vice President, LEGO Direct
legodirect@lego.com
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