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Squorlple @lemmy.world

Rebrickable now preventing MOCs with free instructions from containing trademarked/copyrighted terms in their title

forum.rebrickable.com No brand names but a branded theme?

I do understand the idea, but this doesn’t make any sense, does it? For “opensource” MOCers like me, who do not want to earn money with their instruction, this is pretty much censorship by the way. If you earn money with Star Wars content, pay for the license, fine. If you just painted a picture fr...

No brand names but a branded theme?

Users should be within their rights to use trademarked/copyrighted terms in the names of their MOCs with free instructions. It sounds like Rebrickable is being bullied by an unjust copyright holder. According to an admin, this copyright holder also “most definitely went through and visually identified a lot of MOCs too” — this may mean in the future you cannot have builds which are too well-made in resembling their source material.

I’ve yet to receive takedown notices for any of my MOCs, but it sounds like this situation is developing so we’ll see if existing names can remain going forward.

11 comments

  • It sounds like Rebrickable is being bullied by an unjust copyright holder.

    So... Disney?

    According to an admin, this copyright holder also “most definitely went through and visually identified a lot of MOCs too” — this may mean in the future you cannot have builds which are too well-made in resembling their source material.

    I'm not entirely clear why they would do this. Is there any copyright aspect to this? It seems almost entirely like a trademark issue.

    Are they just concerned about losing their trademark, or do they think that people purchasing Lego pieces and Rebrickable MOC instructions will cut into the market for official Star Wars sets?

    What would be the best solution?

    • One of the commenters on Rebrickable said they had seen these MOCs before removal and then alluded to “whales” in reference to the copyright holder. I asked elsewhere what company people think this could be in reference to and the only answer I heard was the rightsholders for Star Trek, not Disney; the allusion is supposedly to the whales that were prominent in the fourth Star Trek movie. Apparently Paramount is litigious in regards to Star Trek, and with the first Lego set of that franchise coming out soon it may be that the rightsholders have had their attention newly drawn toward the Lego medium. I’ve also not had any of my Star Wars MOCs get taken off of Rebrickable yet and there would be much more outcry if users started seeing their Star Wars MOCs get removed (simply due to the number of users and bigger names who post those) so I don’t think it is Disney.

      It seems as though both copyright and trademark are at play but I am not a lawyer so I don’t know the full scope of what those cover but the law also means nothing when you can buy and bully your way past it.

      I’d assume the rightsholder’s intent is simply to limit who uses their IP’s semblance and how it is used. Based on how impactful the Lego community has been on growing the Star Wars fandom and ultimately leading to more fans buying more official merch, it would be asinine for a company to overlook how much Lego fans’ contributions can ultimately grow and profit their franchise. Nevertheless, if it is the rightsholders for Star Trek or some other IP without a history in Lego, they may not yet see this.

      I think simply communicating how to assemble components into a semblance of an IP is entirely different from selling the semblance of the IP in the form of pre-fab bodies or in the form of packages containing components and assembly instructions. Would Nintendo’s lawyers get on my case if I said to make a mosaic of Mario you need to put a black pixel there and a red pixel here and so on? I think it would be best if the law (and those whom it should apply to) would say that a person saying “hey you can make a semblance of this IP at home by doing this” and that person making some or no profit off of it would be fine. However, using trademarked and copyrighted names in a product, even if that product is just instructions, may mislead some customers into thinking the product is officially sanctioned by the rightsholders, so I would advocate against using it for instructions that are not free.

11 comments