Beware: eBay fraud -- Train MOC instructions

[andythenorth]

It won't prevent scammers, but have you guys considered releasing under a license like Creative Commons non-commercial, and watermarking that in all the images / pdf pages? http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/

I'm not personally a big fan of Creative Commons, it's complicated, I prefer the GNU licensing, but Creative Commons is probably more familiar http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

Dunno if it helps, but authors who give instructions freely haven't actually lost anything (although any buyers who fell for this have). Sure, it's galling to be exploited, but people tend to over-value perceived losses, not always rationally http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion

[Dan-147]

Dunno if it helps, but authors who give instructions freely haven't actually lost anything (although any buyers who fell for this have). Sure, it's galling to be exploited, but people tend to over-value perceived losses, not always rationally http://en.wikipedia....i/Loss_aversion

I agree 100%. If he sells none or dozens of copies of my designs, it won't make any difference in my bank account. I did loose a bit of that ''I made that'' pride from those buyers that are unaware that they purchased one of my designs.

Well I guess that it's another one of those ''Buyer beware'' situations. It's not always easy to know if a seller is the true owner.

Dan-147

[Dan-147]

After sending a not-very-nice message through EBay's service to the_book_hut(Michael Juenemann), he ''gladly'' removed and stopped selling instructions based on my models. I recommend that everyone who's intellectual property was stolen by this leech send him a message telling him clearly what you think of his buisiness tactics. He was pretty nasty in his reply so I don't recommend kid gloves when dealing with him.

Dan-147

Edited February 15, 2013 by Dan-147

[Steinkopf]

After sending a not-very-nice message through EBay's service to the_book_hut(Michael Juenemann), he ''gladly'' removed and stopped selling instructions based on my models. I recommend that everyone who's intellectual property was stolen by this leech send him a message telling him clearly what you think of his buisiness tactics. He was pretty nasty in his reply so I don't recommend kid gloves when dealing with him.

Dan-147

It's good that we have had a positive outcome with this individual, I had also sent a firmly worded message informing him that we were aware of his unscupulous business practices as well as sending a complaint to eBay regarding the issue.

Edited February 15, 2013 by Steinkopf

[Duq]

the_book_hut has now removed all his Lego instructions. I have contacted 'bricks Northwest' on Bricklink who said "I got a bunch of parts and a printed out papers on how to put it together from a garage sale" and offered to remove the instructions for my design from his shop because he doesn't want to step on toes. He's done more than that, all train instructions are now gone.

I'm pretty sure they will surface again under another name pretty soon...

[Lazarus]

Wow ok well i think i am not going to upload my designs any more and water mark my stuff. I want to show everyone my stuff but i dont want people to take them and make money if i dont get some in return.

I put alot of time into my designs, yes i have used some of your guys designs and built them but i have not sold them. As i know it takes alot of time to make something from nothing even if it is just a digital design.

[mikka says]

tbh, i'll freely hand out LDD files, but only if the AFOL makes contact with me via email. which means i can assure whos getting what ^^

[Ben Beneke]

Hi to all train fans!

A 1000steine-member pointed out this thread, and as my name (and YouTube Nickname) got quoted, I wanted to give some explanation and feedback.

In general my designs got stolen pretty often in the past 15 years. And this has been a really annoying issue to me.

Whenever this has happened, it has easily cost me several hours of work that went away from my hobby devoted time. I hated that.

I realized I did not loose any money although a theft sold my property and made a win.

When argueing with "thieves" about their behaviour, I found that they were never willing to let me partizipate from their wins. But most of them where in fact willing to give part of their wins away for charity donations instead. I kind of formalized this in communication with "thieves".

Since nearly 5 years I have an agreement with a person who is licenced to sell instructions after my creations. Since they are officially available, there is hardly any troble for me any more. In some cases my "licenced" copies have been a victim of piracy, but that is an act my licence taker is taking care of. So he keeps my back free.

I have more time for my hobby since then.

The shown links to ebay user "YonLev" are about these models, which are sold with my full support and under respect of all my legal rights.

Yoni is a Co-AFOL from Israel and his chareer started in fact with him selling some of my models as brick-made copies without my permission.

After a brief but harsh discussion we came to a better understanding of each others point and he agreed to behave in a way, where we all could be in a win-situation.

The deal is:

He gets permission to sell my creations.

He pays a "licence" fee into charity orgaizations (basically focussed on kids topics).

The height of that licence fee is depending on the share of our intelectual work involved. It's more where I have created a instruction myself. it's a little less where I have only a CAD-model published. It's just a very small fee, when Yoni created the CAD model himself after Brickshelf pictures of my models.

Customers can now actually buy plans of my models in high quality (higher than I am willing to supply for free).

Charity organizations get an amazing sum of licence fees as donations (we are speaking about 4-digit US$-numbers).

I have by far less trouble with stolen designs of mine, since there is an official source on market now.

Yoni won James Mathis for a similar "contract" as I have in place with him.

These copies of my models are 100% ok for me. No rights are harmed. I can just recommend this as a perfect solution for anybody else.

Yoni is a grat person and a LEGO fan who uses his income out of this (being even higher than the charity part) to pay his spendings for the hobby.

But he invented this business. He operates the ebay shop and deals with customers complaints. So I am fine with this.

Best Regards,

Ben Beneke

Very similar to my coal distric ...but the father of these amazing projects is Reinhard Ben Beneke that made ​​available free of charge on brickshelf and railbrick.

It's a shame that some peaople try to take profits from intellectual property of others ... but so is life: light side vs dark side!

If my BR instructions are published (one day) they will be for free...

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Hi Ben,

it's and honour read from you on this pages ...you're a real Lego master and if I'm a BR addicted it's also your fault!

I'm pleased to meet you on Eurobricks!

LT12V

[Duq]

Hi Ben,

It's good to hear that this is all above board. The strange thing for some of us train fans is seeing designs that we recognise as being yours or James', with a 'The unique brick' watermark and a description by Yonlev saying 'building instructions for my custom models'.

The other seller that was mentioned in this thread did turn out to be a scammer; as soon as he was contacted all his instructions were removed.

I'm sorry your friend was tarred with the same brush but I guess you can see how that happened...

Ronald

[Gioppa]

Now i start to be paranoid!

I just buy from bricklink and from ebay some instruction, are they stolen from somebody?

I'm a good AFOL, i collect set,and normally i don't Made moc, but i want the Union big boy,

I buy instruction and when i show to my LUG, they know is not a my creation, and if i Expose that i write under"from the model of..."

But if that is stolen from somebody...i don't like international trouble!!

So i buy the CUSTOM instruction for the big crane on the ebay, is very easy to find,

And the big boy come from a bricklink user named Scott_mills from somewhere in the U.s.

Oh, and now i'm in search for the other big engine from Union, that 4-6-4 or something like that, if somebody have the instruction,you Made me happy.

[gambort]

Now i start to be paranoid!

I just buy from bricklink and from ebay some instruction, are they stolen from somebody?

I'm a good AFOL, i collect set,and normally i don't Made moc, but i want the Union big boy,

I buy instruction and when i show to my LUG, they know is not a my creation, and if i Expose that i write under"from the model of..."

But if that is stolen from somebody...i don't like international trouble!!

So i buy the CUSTOM instruction for the big crane on the ebay, is very easy to find,

And the big boy come from a bricklink user named Scott_mills from somewhere in the U.s.

Oh, and now i'm in search for the other big engine from Union, that 4-6-4 or something like that, if somebody have the instruction,you Made me happy.

I suggest going to RAILBRICKS and looking through their instructions section before buying any instructions. If the model you want is there, then the eBay seller is probably stealing it. So you get instructions for free from RAILBRICKS and do not support dishonest sellers.

Tim

[Gioppa]

http://www.ebay.it/itm/261015069634?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

One is this

http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=scott_mills

And the other is this,they aren't on railbrick,i have check before.

Thanks for advice!

[Electricsteam]

http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=Bukem&itemID=40720095 I was just wondering ... I found this on bricklink is it plagarism of the mod that was posted on the fourms?

[peterab]

http://www.bricklink...itemID=40720095 I was just wondering ... I found this on bricklink is it plagiarism of the mod that was posted on the fourms?

In this case the idea is sort of obvious, and the design is a natural extension from the 9V crossover and the PF straight track. Hence I'd guess neither the design would be copyrightable, nor would the idea be patentable. It's also pretty reasonable to charge for the effort of actually making these, particularly since they've used a CNC machine to do a very neat job.

The most important thing in my mind is, there's simply no way of knowing if they've ever seen the Eurobricks mod, since it's completely possible they came up with their version independently.

[alainneke]

In this case the idea is sort of obvious, and the design is a natural extension from the 9V crossover and the PF straight track. Hence I'd guess neither the design would be copyrightable, nor would the idea be patentable. It's also pretty reasonable to charge for the effort of actually making these, particularly since they've used a CNC machine to do a very neat job.

The most important thing in my mind is, there's simply no way of knowing if they've ever seen the Eurobricks mod, since it's completely possible they came up with their version independently.

This was posted on lowlug about a month ago (Dutch article, but multi-lingual pictures): http://www.lowlug.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11483. Looks like a very nice job!

[Hrw-Amen]

I would say this is not an infringement myself as has been stated it is kind of an obvious design given that these existed in the 9v era and are essentially the same thing. Long before they appeared on Eurobricks I had planned to do something very similar to get one myself. (Still have not done it.) just maybe at a different angle. So it is not a unique idea, many people have had it. I think for fans of LEGO Railways this MOD is a bit like inventing the wheel, loads of people come up with a thing to represent something they all need / want using the same basic tools and parts. It is fairly obvious they are all going to look reasonably similar if not the same.