Subject:
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Re: Sith Infiltrator
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.starwars
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Date:
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Fri, 14 May 1999 17:42:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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664 times
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On Fri, 14 May 1999 15:07:15 GMT, Christopher Masi
<cmasi@cmasi.chem.tulane.edu> wrote:
> The strange thing about the Star Wars LEGO is the return to a more classic LEGO
> building style. While Lucasfilm Ltd. probably has control over the design or
> approval of designs I would guess that what is really controlling these designs
> is money. After all, "All Star Wars elements are property of Lucasfilm Ltd.
> and/or Lucas Licensing Ltd." I would guess that LEGO has to pay a licensing fee
> for any bricks created specifically to model anything from the Star Wars
> universe. For example, the droids (R2 and the Battle Droids) the designs on the
> minifigs, the helmets, the scanner binocculars, the light sabers, the nose
> piece for the X-Wing, the blasters (laser things on the wings) the cockpit
> canopies, maybe the engines (I doubt it with these), the cockpit displays, the
> printed tiles. If LEGO uses a lot of regular bricks then no one can haggle over
> who owns the brick. Thus, it may be less exspensive to create models with a
> high piece count than to create models with specialty pieces which would
> require LEGO to pay a licensing fee.
I don't think TLG is paying LFL per piece -- I'd guess they are paying
either a flat rate, or a percent of the profits.
As for the ownership of whatever, I'd guess LFL owns the likenesses of the
characters, devices, and vehicles. TLG probably owns the designs to the
parts. If this is true, TLG can use all the new parts in other, non-SW
sets. But they couldn't use the 2x2 slope with the image of the AT-AT
walker.
The battle droid and R2 parts could be a grey area. A plain R2 head is a
generic TLG part, very similar to the bell jar part from the Adventurers
line. A plain R2 body is still pretty generic. The R2 legs? Hmm. Those
are kind of iffy. The battle droid goes pretty much the same way -- some
parts are fairly generic when taken out of the 'battle droid context'. But
other parts, particularly the head, are pretty specific.
It has always been cheaper for TLG to make sets with generic bricks, rather
than special pieces. With plain bricks, they can manufacture a lot of them
and spread around the fixed costs. With special parts, they make fewer,
and the fixed costs (especially designing and building the molds) end up
being a larger part of the per-piece cost.
Steve
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Sith Infiltrator
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| (...) Percent of the gross sales I'll bet. (...) I agree that it is not strictly a penny per piece arrangement, and I agree that LEGO probably owns the desings to the actual minifigs, the 2x2 slopes, the R2 head and body, and LFL probably owns the (...) (25 years ago, 14-May-99, to lugnet.starwars)
| | | Re: Sith Infiltrator
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| TLG paid Lucas a $50 million licensing fee. (...) LEGO (...) designs (...) fee (...) the (...) the (...) over (...) (25 years ago, 15-May-99, to lugnet.starwars)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Sith Infiltrator
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| (...) I think everyone realizes the scale and detail limitations of LEGO. A lot of accurate details would make for sets that contain a lot of special pieces that have limited use and increase price, vide infra. If a Millenium Falcon were done on (...) (25 years ago, 14-May-99, to lugnet.starwars)
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