LEGO fight Against Chinese counterfeit LEGO

CCC

Just noticed this one too, female Thor.

Mr_Cross

Really, really don't like these pirates. Definitely wish Lego could smash them all into oblivion.

Bobflip

CMI said:

Pogo factory tour here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1674932916147843.1073741831.1673084802999321&type=1&l=9817a81b80

They... they have a designers office?! For all the designers they employ? And they have to keep it super top secret so no unscrupulous companies steal their designs!? Is it really just the hallway and the whole operation is an exemplary display of ironic trolling?

Jackad7

So im actually considering getting these because the print quality is so low. I need yellow troops for my 327th star corps but lego doesn't make them and getting bulk clone army custom(or high quality custom equivilant) would probably cost more than my extra kidney so that's not really an option. However these 212th troopers (who are supposed to be orange) are the new phase 2 and are yellow! I'm intrigued at the idea.
Edit to not double post- this gave me a laugh 

Muftak1

^ It flies backwards!

FowlerBricks

CCC said:

Just noticed this one too, female Thor.

Does she have a hard cape?

Recce

Looks like someone released a bigger and more accurate Ninjago Movie dragon than the official one. 1433 pcs.





Size comparison with the Saturn V.

Glacierfalls265

I can see it now, that'll be the next big kid's show ;) "Space Dragons" Unless that's already a thing?

Glacierfalls265

Update: upon researching the topic I found that Space Dragons is a sports club in Long Beach, California, and that there are numerous pictures of dragons in space online. But no tv shows. Somebody make this a thing! 

ACWWGal2011

Can't wait. Ordered 3 of the 1012A's, one each for mom, uncle, and me along side the rest of my order.

CCC said:

63p each (delivered) on ali ...

It is amazing how quick they get the knock-offs out these days. And more variants than lego would ever do.

Cyberdragon

Glacierfalls265 said:

I can see it now, that'll be the next big kid's show ;) "Space Dragons" Unless that's already a thing?

It would be something along the lines of trying to escape an exploding space station because one of them sneezes and accidently breathes fire in a pure oxygen environment. But space dragons would make an interesting movie or LEGO theme.

On topic: BrickVault mentioned in one of his streams that while he does not endorse it, he would understand if someone wanted to buy *cough* UCS Millenium Falcon in Lepin *cough* simply because it's cheaper. Crappier, but cheaper.

blogzilly

Enjoyed the main website article about the LEPIN Super Star Destroyer. 

Ive had a very strange relationship with LEPIN stuff. Want to write about it. Guess I could, its an interesting subject, product cloning, and certainly an interesting study of ethical, economic, social issues and a lot more. It's not as simple as I think many would casually believe.

The SSD article touched on some great stuff.

CCC

Looks like the Chinese have done Clock King first too ...

andhe

FowlerBricks said:

CCC said:

Just noticed this one too, female Thor.

Does she have a hard cape?

It looks like a copy of the (solid plastic) brickwarriors cape.


I know I've said this before, but how they send these things from China for less than the price of a 1st class stamp astounds me.

FowlerBricks

(throws up)

CCC

andhe said:

I know I've said this before, but how they send these things from China for less than the price of a 1st class stamp astounds me.

Less than a second class large letter stamp too!

ACWWGal2011

CCC said:

andhe said:

I know I've said this before, but how they send these things from China for less than the price of a 1st class stamp astounds me.

Less than a second class large letter stamp too!

Or no cost at all. I ordered some figures and the Lepin cave and i don't think there was shipping cost on any of them.... Oh vey that thing is going to be a nightmare to build. I don't know if the bags in the package behind the laptop are numbered or not.

ACWWGal2011

ACWWGal2011 said:

CCC said:

andhe said:

I know I've said this before, but how they send these things from China for less than the price of a 1st class stamp astounds me.

Less than a second class large letter stamp too!

Or no cost at all. I ordered some figures and the Lepin cave and i don't think there was shipping cost on any of them.... Oh vey that thing is going to be a nightmare to build. I don't know if the bags in the package behind the laptop are numbered or not.

Oy vey. One of the things i prefer about legos are the number bags. Lepin mountin cave? 29XX pieces, 196 page instruction manual which includes the alt builds, and no numbered bag system.

ImABrickManNow

CCC said:

63p each (delivered) on ali ...

It is amazing how quick they get the knock-offs out these days. And more variants than lego would ever do.

I feel like they missed out on the chance to call this KO "Duckpool".

jofihu

It took me a while to catch up with all the messages in the thread. You guys are very passionate about this issue for all the good reasons. 

I think there must be something going on between eBay and TLG that we don't know. I once tried to sell a replica Oakley Jawbone glasses on eBay and the listing was struck off in a matter of minutes. I never tried to sell a replica ever again.

As a data scientist and software engineer, it's straightforward to spot the majority of the fake Lego listings in an automated manner. It would take me no more than one day to develop such system.

I'm not sure why eBay is not already doing it for Lego but is doing it for Oakley?

I have access to eBay sales data and I estimated that each figure that falls into "fits" or "custom" generates around £2000 figure/year. For example, there were roughly 1200 Boba Fett figures sold between August 2016 and August 2017 in UK. Total sales were £4500.

It's interesting to note that in U.S the number of counterfeit figures is drastically lower. Only 250 Boba Fetts were sold and the total sales were £500. So perhaps the issue is with IP laws in each country?

I also found out that the market for fake Star Wars figures is around £200,000 in UK and £72K in U.S. Please note that this is only for Star Wars figures. There are many more: themes, countries and sets. There are roughly 150 Lego themes. eBay operates in roughly 30 countries. So a rough estimate would be that £200M-£500M of fake items are being sold on eBay every year.

One day of my time could stop a £200M-£500M market and Lego and eBay know it.

Why they are not doing it?

LEGO had record sales and profit last year so the growing fake market seems to be helping them in some weird way. Perhaps brands trying to be as cool as Lego empower Lego even more?

This is quote from TLG's CEO: “We were encouraged by our performance in mature markets in Europe and continue to see strong potential in China, which represents an attractive growth opportunity,” he said."

Shib

Fake Designer clothes and accessories often get pulled because a lot of companies in the fashion industry came together to put pressure on eBay to do something about the amount of fake stuff being sold.

LuLego

Really interesting stuff there @jofihu

CCC

^^^ How do you define locations on ebay? Is it just the sellers location? As there are 1000s of fake figures sold to US (and UK) buyers every year, from sellers based in China / Hong Kong.

CCC

jofihu said:

I also found out that the market for fake Star Wars figures is around £200,000 in UK and £72K in U.S. Please note that this is only for Star Wars figures. There are many more: themes, countries and sets. There are roughly 150 Lego themes. eBay operates in roughly 30 countries. So a rough estimate would be that £200M-£500M of fake items are being sold on eBay every year.

I'd love to see your working here. Are you assuming that 150 different themes have the pulling power of Star Wars? And that each country has the same volume as the UK?

jofihu

CCC said:

jofihu said:

I also found out that the market for fake Star Wars figures is around £200,000 in UK and £72K in U.S. Please note that this is only for Star Wars figures. There are many more: themes, countries and sets. There are roughly 150 Lego themes. eBay operates in roughly 30 countries. So a rough estimate would be that £200M-£500M of fake items are being sold on eBay every year.

I'd love to see your working here. Are you assuming that 150 different themes have the pulling power of Star Wars? And that each country has the same volume as the UK?

Please take those numbers with a pinch of salt. I didn't research throughly. It's a rough estimate.

Here is the thinking behind it:

£200,000K worth of fake Star Wars figures and sets were sold on eBay between August 2016 and August 2017 in UK . There are 130 (not 150) Lego themes on Brickset. We could say that the number of sets in each theme is correlated to the popularity of each theme. Otherwise, why wouldn’t Lego make sets of themes that are not popular or don’t sell?

There are 14,332 sets listed on Brickset, 570 out of 14,332 are Star Wars sets. Let’s assume 25% of those sets have replicas. So we could say 142 Star Wars sets generated £200,000 worth of sales. Or, let’s put in another way, every fake set generates £200,000 / 142 = £1408 worth of sales. Therefore, 3583 (total replica sets) * 1408 (sales per replica) = £5,044,864 worth of Sales on eBay between August 2016 and August 2017 in UK. If all the sets had replicas, then the figure would be £20M. If the 10% had replicas, then the figure would be £2M.

There are many more factors that should be taken into account such as:

• Demand and fluctuations on all the countries eBay operates.
• Number of countries eBay operates in: 30.
• Difference between fake sets and figures
• Exact number of replicas
• Other retailers such as Amazon, AliExpress, Alibaba and anyone who sells fake sets and figures.

Number of countries and retailers would boost the previous figure by several orders of magnitude.

This is a rough estimate but the point is the fake figures are big business and in some weird way it might be helping Lego given they had record sales this year.

CCC

jofihu said:

£200,000K worth of fake Star Wars figures and sets were sold on eBay between August 2016 and August 2017 in UK . There are 130 (not 150) Lego themes on Brickset. We could say that the number of sets in each theme is correlated to the popularity of each theme. Otherwise, why wouldn’t Lego make sets of themes that are not popular or don’t sell?

Star Wars is by far the biggest of those themes. Not just in terms of lego sales but also in terms of faked figures. The figures are reasonably expensive on the secondary market as they come in expensive sets, so they are faked. Whereas other good selling sets (eg City) do not have problems with faked minifigures, since minifigures are cheap on the secondary market. The only other ranges close to SW for faking are Super Heroes and more recently the CMF series.

Sets are faked too, but these tend to be larger SW ships and modulars. There is not really the demand for fakes of 5 year old Atlantis sets, for example.

Of course, aliexpress and alibaba have huge numbers.  Lego are perfectly aware of what is going on there and on ebay (hence their current legal action against Lepin).

I don't really see how the claim that one day of your time can stop a £0.5 Billion market has any validity. Knowing there are fakes and doing something about it are two different things. If it really was that simple, don't you think that would have solved it by now?

jofihu

CCC said:

jofihu said:

£200,000K worth of fake Star Wars figures and sets were sold on eBay between August 2016 and August 2017 in UK . There are 130 (not 150) Lego themes on Brickset. We could say that the number of sets in each theme is correlated to the popularity of each theme. Otherwise, why wouldn’t Lego make sets of themes that are not popular or don’t sell?

Star Wars is by far the biggest of those themes. Not just in terms of lego sales but also in terms of faked figures. The figures are reasonably expensive on the secondary market as they come in expensive sets, so they are faked. Whereas other good selling sets (eg City) do not have problems with faked minifigures, since minifigures are cheap on the secondary market. The only other ranges close to SW for faking are Super Heroes and more recently the CMF series.

Sets are faked too, but these tend to be larger SW ships and modulars. There is not really the demand for fakes of 5 year old Atlantis sets, for example.

Of course, aliexpress and alibaba have huge numbers.  Lego are perfectly aware of what is going on there and on ebay (hence their current legal action against Lepin).

I don't really see how the claim that one day of your time can stop a £0.5 Billion market has any validity. Knowing there are fakes and doing something about it are two different things. If it really was that simple, don't you think that would have solved it by now?

My point is that is technically easy to stop it. However, there must be other reasons why this is still an ongoing issue. I'm curious to know them.

For example, Apple vs. Xiaomi https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Apple-sue-Xiaomi. Xiaomi blatantly copied Apple in China and China's legal system seems to allow it.

However, Xiomi can't get into other markets because of IP. This doesn't seem to be happening with Lego. Chinese Lego-wannabe companies are violating Lego's IP yet they are still able to sell overseas. Why?

datsunrobbie

@jofihu , the simple reason is money. Assuming your algorithm actually worked for detection of fakes on eBay, it would remove a huge number of listings, thus removing a huge amount of profit that eBay would make on those sales. Instead, they remove listings when the infringed party demands the removal, and continue to make lots of money selling the rest of the fakes. You used fake Oakley glasses as an example that got wiped from eBay. That indicates to me that Oakley's legal team has put more financial pressure on eBay to remove those listings. Every fake minifigure sold on eBay makes money for eBay, and as long as they make more money selling fakes than they spend defending those sales, the selling of fakes will continue. 

NorvernRob

andhe said:

FowlerBricks said:

CCC said:

Just noticed this one too, female Thor.

Does she have a hard cape?

It looks like a copy of the (solid plastic) brickwarriors cape.


I know I've said this before, but how they send these things from China for less than the price of a 1st class stamp astounds me.

 
I'm a postie and we get big shrouds full of this Chinese crap - everything from phone chargers to jewellery. The reason they can sell and ship it so stupidly cheap (99p delivered from China!) is that they can get so many of these tiny parcels in a shipping container, the cost per parcel is somewhere around 1 pence.

MAGNINOMINISUMBRA

The Oakley brand is part of the Luxottica group.  Luxottica is The biggest eyewear company on the planet and you'd be extremely hard pressed to brand identify with a sunglasses or eyewear brand that they don't own.  Every fashion based eyewear brand is owned by them also. They do have a specific agreement with eBay and their products are additionally covered by the same policies which protect Prada, Versace et al.
  

eggshen

MAGNINOMINISUMBRA said:

The Oakley brand is part of the Luxottica group.  Luxottica is The biggest eyewear company on the planet and you'd be extremely hard pressed to brand identify with a sunglasses or eyewear brand that they don't own.  Every fashion based eyewear brand is owned by them also. They do have a specific agreement with eBay and their products are additionally covered by the same policies which protect Prada, Versace et al.
  

Luxottica also owns Eyemed, which a lot of companies offer as vision medical insurance even though it only covers glasses. They also own a lot of actual eyewear labs like the ones you see in Target, malls, etc. Pretty much an enourmous monopoly. Oh, and they also ran Oakley to financial ruin then bought the company. 

Learned that from the show Adam Ruins Everything.

willobee498

jofihu said:This is a rough estimate but the point is the fake figures are big business and in some weird way it might be helping Lego given they had record sales this year.

Correlation, not causation. If anything, Lego having big sales just show how popular Lego currently is. That popularity means more shoppers, and that includes shoppers with less money/different values who will not be against buying fakes.

CaptainPirateMan

What are everyone's thoughts on this???
https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32819765245.html?trace=storeDetail2msiteDetail#autostay

I honestly don't think they have even made one, they are just seeing how much interest is out there, then make it later. 

stlux

Another MOC rip-off from the company only putting some (poor) thought into "how do we call this different but still the same?"

Original MOC here: http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/317195

Seems there's even the LDD file, so no need to give money to those thieving *****.

monkeyhanger

Just wondering when they'll get the new UCS Falcon out and how much they'll be hoping to charge for it. Surprised they haven't been seen doing preorders already.

CaptainPirateMan

stlux said:i

Another MOC rip-off from the company only putting some (poor) thought into "how do we call this different but still the same?"

Original MOC here: http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/317195

Seems there's even the LDD file, so no need to give money to those thieving *****.

Oh, I'm not buying this. No way. I actually just bought instructions for THIS Flying Dutchman.
I am Brick Linking mine, lol. Sets like these deserve the best bricks imo.
http://www.brickstruct.com/Brickstruct.com/Flying Dutchman page .html

The creator of THIS MOC actually posted on this site before, I believe. I am also a member of Eurobricks, and I am fully aware that Sebeus is the creator of the one that Lepin is stealing. 

While I will admit the price is interesting for such a MOC, I can not support Lepin ripping off MOC'ers hard work. The only reason I even came to know about the Lepin version is because I have been doing a lot of homework looking into Flying Dutchmen MOCS. 

TheFew

CaptainPirateMan said:

stlux said:i

Another MOC rip-off from the company only putting some (poor) thought into "how do we call this different but still the same?"

Original MOC here: http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/317195

Seems there's even the LDD file, so no need to give money to those thieving *****.

Oh, I'm not buying this. No way. I actually just bought instructions for THIS Flying Dutchman.
I am Brick Linking mine, lol. Sets like these deserve the best bricks imo.
http://www.brickstruct.com/Brickstruct.com/Flying Dutchman page .html

The creator of THIS MOC actually posted on this site before, I believe. I am also a member of Eurobricks, and I am fully aware that Sebeus is the creator of the one that Lepin is stealing. 

While I will admit the price is interesting for such a MOC, I can not support Lepin ripping off MOC'ers hard work. The only reason I even came to know about the Lepin version is because I have been doing a lot of homework looking into Flying Dutchmen MOCS. 

Ohhh is the a parts list available to assess practicality of building this beauty?

CaptainPirateMan

TheFew said:

CaptainPirateMan said:

stlux said:i

Another MOC rip-off from the company only putting some (poor) thought into "how do we call this different but still the same?"

Original MOC here: http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/317195

Seems there's even the LDD file, so no need to give money to those thieving *****.

Oh, I'm not buying this. No way. I actually just bought instructions for THIS Flying Dutchman.
I am Brick Linking mine, lol. Sets like these deserve the best bricks imo.
http://www.brickstruct.com/Brickstruct.com/Flying Dutchman page .html

The creator of THIS MOC actually posted on this site before, I believe. I am also a member of Eurobricks, and I am fully aware that Sebeus is the creator of the one that Lepin is stealing. 

While I will admit the price is interesting for such a MOC, I can not support Lepin ripping off MOC'ers hard work. The only reason I even came to know about the Lepin version is because I have been doing a lot of homework looking into Flying Dutchmen MOCS. 

Ohhh is the a parts list available to assess practicality of building this beauty?

Sure is. He sells very good instructions. I'm excited to start buying parts.

TheFew

CaptainPirateMan said:

TheFew said:

CaptainPirateMan said:

stlux said:i

Another MOC rip-off from the company only putting some (poor) thought into "how do we call this different but still the same?"

Original MOC here: http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/317195

Seems there's even the LDD file, so no need to give money to those thieving *****.

Oh, I'm not buying this. No way. I actually just bought instructions for THIS Flying Dutchman.
I am Brick Linking mine, lol. Sets like these deserve the best bricks imo.
http://www.brickstruct.com/Brickstruct.com/Flying Dutchman page .html

The creator of THIS MOC actually posted on this site before, I believe. I am also a member of Eurobricks, and I am fully aware that Sebeus is the creator of the one that Lepin is stealing. 

While I will admit the price is interesting for such a MOC, I can not support Lepin ripping off MOC'ers hard work. The only reason I even came to know about the Lepin version is because I have been doing a lot of homework looking into Flying Dutchmen MOCS. 

Ohhh is the a parts list available to assess practicality of building this beauty?

Sure is. He sells very good instructions. I'm excited to start buying parts.

Do you have to buy the instructions to get the parts list? I was hoping to gain a view on how horrendous the parts costs would be before splashing the cash.

CaptainPirateMan

You can email him from his website, he's a pretty friendly guy. He might be willing to help you. If you DO buy it, it comes with a bsx file that will load into brick links wanted list. So a BIG part of the work is already done, and you can start buying parts right away.

iso3200

TheFew said:

Do you have to buy the instructions to get the parts list? I was hoping to gain a view on how horrendous the parts costs would be before splashing the cash.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I would like to draw your attention to the defendant's compulsive behaviour patterns. He simply cannot help himself.

He has freely admitted to starting to various projects concurrently and rarely finishes them. He is a man who needs help, not encouragement. The evidence is plain to see at http://bricksetforum.com/discussion/26940/brick-link-remorse

It should be noted that his username TheFew is merely a cover for his addiction. He is in fact known in other circles as TheMany.

I put it to the jury that the defendant is incapable of making a balanced decision due to his addiction. He needs therapy, not persecution or prosecution.

The defence rests ;-p

saddlerstu

monkeyhanger said:

Just wondering when they'll get the new UCS Falcon out and how much they'll be hoping to charge for it. Surprised they haven't been seen doing preorders already.

Just noticed the new UCS Falcon up as a pre-sell for £169.59, didn't take them long!

TheFew

iso3200 said:

TheFew said:

Do you have to buy the instructions to get the parts list? I was hoping to gain a view on how horrendous the parts costs would be before splashing the cash.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I would like to draw your attention to the defendant's compulsive behaviour patterns. He simply cannot help himself.

He has freely admitted to starting to various projects concurrently and rarely finishes them. He is a man who needs help, not encouragement. The evidence is plain to see at http://bricksetforum.com/discussion/26940/brick-link-remorse

It should be noted that his username TheFew is merely a cover for his addiction. He is in fact known in other circles as TheMany.

I put it to the jury that the defendant is incapable of making a balanced decision due to his addiction. He needs therapy, not persecution or prosecution.

The defence rests ;-p

Ohhhhh... but it looks soo nice!

CaptainPirateMan

@TheFew,

It does sound like you have plenty of projects going.

TheFew

CaptainPirateMan said:

@TheFew,

It does sound like you have plenty of projects going.

Yeah, but always room for a flying dutchman... especially as I have no ships yet!

CaptainPirateMan

TheFew said:

CaptainPirateMan said:

@TheFew,

It does sound like you have plenty of projects going.

Yeah, but always room for a flying dutchman... especially as I have no ships yet!

Agreed!!!

bricknation

It could be old news but I just noticed that Xiaomi joined the party with their take on Mindstorms. Xiaomi Mitu.

CCC

I knew I had seen the new batman centurion before ...

Looks like the bootleggers got there first with this one.

CaptainPirateMan

Am I the only one that finds all these Batman variations ridiculous? The Lego Batman movie CMF did nothing for me.

Aanchir

CaptainPirateMan said:

Am I the only one that finds all these Batman variations ridiculous? The Lego Batman movie CMF did nothing for me.

I think most people find them ridiculous; it's just that for many people their ridiculousness is central to their appeal. Humor can be a strong selling point, especially for impulse/novelty items.