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In lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade, Richard Marchetti writes:
> This has all really been asked and answered, or are you just trolling or
> something?
Well, I was looking for more information important to makers of custom lego
parts. I wanted to know where the "line" was - at what point TLC would come
after someone. (I may not have used clear enough language in earlier posts). I
was focusing on Bram's brick because I reasoned it was the
most blatant of objects possible to forge..
The responses I'm getting on Lugnet are mostly defending Bram's work
specifically, i.e. "He's only making a few", "It's an homage, not competition".
Not answers to the question I was asking at all. I'm not saying he should or
shouldn't be doing it.
> If you can explain how we can make knock-off pitchforks for $0.20 each in
> low numbers
For some this would be quite easy to do, given the state of the art ABS
stereolithography machines out there. If you're factoring in the cost of the
machine and your time, of course there's no way John Q. Public could compete
with Bilund - at least not right now. But if you had access to such production
machinery - for example, at a school - it wouldn't be too hard. Otherwise, it
wouldn't make sense to spend millions of dollars on tooling when there's no
market for the parts. Plus if TLC went after you it would make all that expense
worthless.
In the past, the criteria I've been given is, "all is fair play, unless you
plan on making any money off of a Lego idea. If you did, TLC would have
something to say". Well, when you sell custom parts, you're making money. When
does TLC have something to say?
That was closer to the question I was asking, which no one has really answered
so far. TLC itself is very vague about this, given its varying views on domain
names, LDraw, Guild of Bricksmiths, the Blacksmith Shop, etc.
Perhaps no one (other than TLC lawyers) is qualified to address this issue,
because no one really knows for sure.. I was hoping to get responses from
custom part creators with personal experience dealing with TLC, or from lurking
TLC employees. What I'm getting is responses from the consumers of the custom
parts - who would of course side with the producers. (BTW, I would consider
myself a would-be-producer)
Oh well. You win.
Darrell
I'm sorry I picked a fight at your Black Panther Party.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Solid Aluminum 2x4 Bricks!
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| Darrell, I offered my views on this issue, with references. [1] I did not specifically defend the practice and I don't have a final answer either. My conclusion is that Lego construe their proprietary rights to be much broader than patent law (...) (22 years ago, 11-Jun-02, to lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Solid Aluminum 2x4 Bricks!
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| This has all really been asked and answered, or are you just trolling or something? The 2x4 brick design is in the public domain. Even if it were not, the aluminum brick design in question is actually an original creation (note the configuration of (...) (22 years ago, 8-Jun-02, to lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade)
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