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Overwhelming supply of fake Minifigs and Lego
Kangojack
Member Posts: 38
I was at our local market on Sunday, and was very disappointed to see a very large store selling fake Lego. The minifig section was the largest I have seen to date (see picture).
The store was at ‘The College Markets’ in Capalaba QLD Australia 
formally ‘Chandler Markets’.
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Comments
What is intellectual property?
I wouldn't bother with the Knavesmire bootfair for Lego. It is either knockoff or overpriced.
I avoid knock off Lego like the plague, because frankly I want minifigs that are going to be around and in good condition for decades and I'm not convinced the knock offs will be, but as Lego increases it's prices and decreases it's quality it's removing the motivations to buy genuine. I'm not surprised therefore that this is a growing problem- whatever you think of counterfeits there's no real doubt that counterfeit markets arrive where genuine products are leaving a gap. When companies like Apple, Rolex and Lego price premium, it means there are people who want budget versions of their product that aren't served, hence why the counterfeit market arises. This leaves companies with a choice of filling that void, or accepting counterfeits as an inevitable reaction to their refusal to do so, there isn't really any other option.
It's difficult for premium companies, because the act of filling the void can in itself devalue that premium image, but as we've seen with Apple, they finally have a (relatively) budget version of the iPhone and they've reaped the profits of doing so so it clearly can work. I don't know how TLG would do the same thing, as I'm not sure how they could do a budget line if they even wanted to, but they may want to just stop raising prices because consider that there's a lot of talk that TLG is in a bubble waiting to burst, whilst they're riding high on premium price points now, what happens if that bubble does burst? they'll be forced to drop price and will find themselves competing against this thriving counterfeit market. Thus, it might make a lot of sense to do something about that and become more competitive against it now so that when/if TLG does fall it's still got the remaining market largely cornered. It's pretty clear given the counterfeit products that sell the most - minifigs - that a CMF line of super heroes, and/or Star Wars minifigs most definitely has a market.
As for counterfeiters at car boots and so forth? fuck em. If you spot them then call the police non-emergency number, the local council if it's a council run market, or trading standards. As much as I have a problem with current IP laws I still believe it's inherently wrong to try and profit off of someone else's design and marketing work. If you want to sell minifigs then create your own designs.
I believe posting this is not entirely off topic, actually rather the contrary considering what others wrote here with regard to IP etc.
Fortunately the quality difference is good enough that you can tell them apart by the kind of plastic and printing, but it's really unfortunate how widespread these have gotten.
Roodaka
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3217/2290324323_6613d3b57b.jpg
Sidorak
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3038/2290324411_7b6b4a8a6c.jpg
Gaaki
http://i937.photobucket.com/albums/ad217/boss-nass/DSC08491-1.jpg
Iruini
http://upload.zantherus.com/files/30n2k4rp9g7e8julgzyc.jpg
There are all the rahaga somewhere and I remember seeing a Hordika Vakama in the same packaging as Sidorak and Roodaka. lol.
Some of the Sheng are pretty cool though.
Apologies if I've missed this said above, but I believe that trading standards would have no problem with this, so long as the consumer isn't being duped into thinking that they are buying LEGO. If the seller isn't using the LEGO logo, or calling them LEGO and when asked is actually saying they are LEGO compatible then there's no problem - from a trading standards perspective. There may be a breach of the minifigure patent but even if there is that's an issue for LEGO not trading standards. Use of brands such as STAR WARS etc is slightly greyer, the offence of using the trademark again would be an issue for Disney lawyers the fact that you might believe you're buying officially licensed products might become an issue for trading standards but honestly, I wouldn't want them wasting their time on that - there are MUCH bigger issues for them to sensibly use their time and resources on.
This is entirely of LEGO's making, by overpricing their product, just as the music industry overprices their product too. If they want to do that then they need to privately pay for any protection of their brand themselves, and not use up the time of officials paid for from tax.
The one issue where trading standards should take a close look at these 'knock-offs' is in the material quality and other toy standards.
1. Taxation. TLG & companies selling their products are paying taxes involved with selling said products, while the counterfeiters & the sellers are likely using tactics to avoid paying tax, as it has to be declared, including some details as what is sold. Counterfeit products are illegal in most western countries, so declaring you are selling them drags up points 2 & 3, so to avoid that, avoid paying tax.
2. Certification & Regulations. TLG & other companies have to abide by various regulations & standards, much of which means they are paying for the privilege to sell their products, as they have to pay for a variety of government tests & verifications that their products are safe & fit for purpose. Counterfeiters do not pay for such paperwork & therefore may be unsafe.
3. Trademark. TLG has spent large amounts of money in various countries, via their legal system putting in place various trademarks, copyrights, etc, from which the government itself would derive some income, while the counterfeiters have copied said items, breeching those trademarks.
Do you pay taxes? Image the government decided not to pick up your garbage any more, or fix the roads... You pay taxes to them, they have a duty of care to get these things done. TLG pay taxes, certifications & legal fees to our governments, so they too have the right to expect some degree of action on the part of the government.
I don't really know where this myth surfaced from that you can say "Not real Lego" as a get out clause for all IP infringement. The problem with this fake Super Heroes minifigs is that they infringe on multiple levels. Certainly in general they're designed to look like Lego's product, but there are a number of areas of infringement beyond that. Lego's design patent on many (all?) of it's blocks has now expired such that you can imitate the form, however each and every print on a brick or minifig in itself will be covered by copyright, the marvel characters are also covered by copyright, the box art that appears to be taken directly, or almost directly from Lego (TT?) materials is covered by copyright, and the Super Heroes logo is a trademark. Simply stating "not official Lego" doesn't preclude the possibility that someone would still assume based on the numerous infringements that it's a licensed clone authorised by Lego, even if not made by Lego. It also doesn't preclude someone from assuming that it has DC or Marvel's blessing. On the contrary, the infringement of numerous protected logos and designs is in place precisely to give people this exact impression - that it's somehow part of the Lego/Marvel/DC offering because it looks to the layman like it could be, and that's the test the courts use.
These sorts of clones seem to be designed to satisfy the relatively lax IP laws of Asian and Russian markets, but they've made their way into Western markets where IP laws are much more stringent (largely because we're more services based societies and so IP law is more important). Were the intention to be anything other than to mislead as a Lego/Marvel/DC product they'd simply create a whole new IP with their own characters. Given the closeness however to existing products it's impossible to argue rationally that these clones are to be passed off as anything other Marvel/DC characters.
I don't think we should be in the business of second guessing where trading standards priorities should be, I'm sure they're capable of doing that themselves. How much of a problem it is really depends on how much weight you put into the idea that this sort of for profit infringement supports everything from tax dodging to terrorism. I'm not really about to begin to guess how much it does as the evidence ranges from studies saying not at all, to cold hard court cases determining that it happens at least sometimes, through to end of the world scenarios pushed by vested interests declaring it will end Western civilisation. I suspect as usual that the truth is somewhere in the middle, but that's why I'd rather leave it to trading standards to prioritise.
Do trading standards actually worry about 'clear [IP] rights violations'? is that their remit. They almost solely concern themselves with consumer protection, consumer credit and food safety, they are generally part of local authority departments that also work on environmental health, health and safety etc. Counterfeit goods are a large part of what they do but within the terms of consumer protection and (product and food) safety. They were originally set up to ensure that consumers weren't being ripped off, and that has largely stayed consistent. Is a consumer being ripped off by a non-official licensed product that they are getting below market value?
You might also notice I was specifically talking about the York car boot sale. I also specifically said that product safety should be considered by Trading Standards.
However, the reality is still that all those IP infringements, even the plethora of them in the AUS photos are still a civil issue in the UK. It could also be taken one step further, that as LEGO were surely made aware that moving production to china would greatly increase the prevalence of counterfeit products (I know for a fact that companies planning on moving production there are advised of this), are they even liable for the IP infringement of their associated brands - The Simpsons, Star Wars, Marvel etc.
Also, this is very much in Trading Standard's remit. I suggest you read the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/intellectual-property-crime-and-infringement
Relevant quotes:and:and:I don't think it could really be any more clear cut.
“Infringement” is a legal term for an act that means breaking a law. IP rights are infringed when a product, creation or invention protected by IP laws are exploited, copied or otherwise used without having the proper authorisation, permission or allowance from the person who owns those rights or their representative.
It can range from using technology protected by a patent to selling counterfeit medicines/software or copying a film and making it available online.
All of these acts will constitute a civil infringement but some copyright and trade mark infringements may also be a criminal offence such as the sale of counterfeits including clothing.
Exactly as I said, IP infringement isn't a criminal issue. Counterfeiting is, but these aren't counterfeit goods, if they were sold as LEGO and said LEGO on the box it would be a counterfeit, it doesn't, they're not. There's an IP infringement for the minifigure patent and a plethora of trademarks for Star Wars, Simpsons etc. but they're not counterfeit as they're not claiming to be LEGO and I don't believe you can be a counterfeit of a license. Repackage them in a LEGO box and that's counterfeit, like putting a Levi's label on a pair of matalan jeans.
With all of this, I'm not defending the shady chinese companies, but pointing out that if its to be dealt with it should be LEGO, Disney, WB, Fox and whoever else that pays for it as its their IPs they are protecting.
FWIW I'm not defending the scope creep of trading standards either by the way - I largely agree with what you're arguing they should be doing, I'm just pointing out that it most definitely is their job. It somewhat irks me that council tax payers are effectively funding enforcement issues for private businesses, especially when as you say, private businesses are the ones that create the environment in which this happens in the first place.
I believe this sort of enforcement should be funded out of general taxation, probably into the police force as it's a criminal issue and then it should be up to local police forces to determine how much of an issue this is. This would make more sense given that the police are better equipped to pursue counterfeiting rings nationwide than localised trading standards bodies are. As it stands we've got this broken situation where government mandates that councils must do it, so councils have to spend money doing something they probably have no interest in whilst creating a defacto policing organisation that undoubtedly ends up duplicating effort by the police themselves and hence wasting money. It is a stupid situation, but it is what it is unfortunately.
On a wider note this is why I believe the whole concept of localism is broken, it seems to be an effort to make local authorities take responsibility for things they don't want to and have no control over because they're mandated to deal with. Try asking your elected councillors to push for trading standards enforcement of criminal IP infringement to be defunded and see what happens, it'll highlight why localism is a nonsense - it only reaches as far as the blame for things going wrong does :smile:
(See http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/h_to_k/intellectual_property_crime/)
Trademarks are more complicated and again unauthorised use will always be civil but can be criminal. In these cases I suspect their defense against the criminal prosecution would be that the trademark holder authorised similar use for the licensed product. It then is just unauthorised use (a civil matter). By contrast if they copied the Lego logo there would be no defense. That might explain why they're happy to infringe the Simpsons, Disney etc but not Lego. Especially as Disney are known to be particularly strong on enforcing their ip. If they infringed Lego it would be counterfeit but something that is like lego can't be a counterfeit of either a TV show or film.
After that you spout out a paragraph that can only reasonably described as made up nonsense. I mean, where did you even get this idea that some arbitrary nonsense about authorisation to one company to use some IP allows another 3rd party to get away with it only being a civil offence if they do the same without authorisation? That's not even close to the reality of IP law which, as I said (and as the very link you posted says) determines criminality of IP infringement based primarily on motive - i.e. did you do it for personal material gain (I quote: For each of the offences in section 92(1) - (3) it is also necessary for the prosecutor to prove that the person conducted the activities "... with a view to gain for himself or another, or with intent to cause loss to another."). If you can't understand the government's plain English description of IP law from the earlier link I'm not even about to begin dissecting the CPS' quoting of the law itself for you, but just in case anyone else is interested, then the "Elements of the offence" section under Criminal offences in the Trademarks section of the CPS document describes the steps necessary to prove criminal infringement. A quick read should make it clear that use of say, the Super Heroes trademarked logo leaves them falling flat in the face of this law.
Look, I know you childishly seem to view me as some kind of online nemesis or whatever because you're the sort of guy that just has to hold grudges about every little thing, but you really should just stop digging at this point. It's just embarrassing. You don't have to be right about everything ever, the world wont end if you're not, it's okay, we all get things wrong sometimes just as I did here in the past regarding taxation. There's opinion, and everyone has the right to this, but then there's cold hard fact, and you're reaching a point of such absurdity that you're de-facto declaring that you know the law better than the people that wrote it and the people that have to apply it. I'm afraid you don't just get to redefine established law and legal precedent just because you have this desperate need to "win" every online discussion.