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Surprises

by Mike Masnick

Fri, Sep 16th 2005 2:17am





Okay, Maybe The Lego Folks Aren't Always So Bad

from the one-out-of-three dept

Over the last two weeks, we've had a couple stories that made Lego look a little too eager to send out lawyers on intellectual property matters. There was the scolding anyone would receive for going to legos.com instead of lego.com, followed up by an attempt to tell an artist she couldn't use her own name (which yes, was Lego) on her artwork. However, alison writes in to let us know that the folks at Lego aren't always so bad when it comes to some intellectual property matters: "When Lego executives recently discovered that adult fans of the iconic plastic bricks had hacked one of the company's new development tools for digital designers, they did a surprising thing: They cheered..." In this case, they probably could have pulled a DMCA-type trick for circumvention or something, but (thankfully) they realized that would be silly. What the hack did in this case might lower the price of certain orders by making them more efficient -- but they probably realized just as quickly that those lower prices would mean more people would order the Legos (snicker) necessary to build their creations.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    Lego

    identicon
    Saucy Del Mar, Sep 16th, 2005 @ 3:01am

    I still think they are dicks with the legal stuff.. I'm cheering for the chinese counterfeits

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    pfft

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Sep 16th, 2005 @ 9:43am

    Do you really need all these new-fangled geegaws like Lay-gos? In my day we played with Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs, and we liked it!

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Repeated requests

    identicon
    Klasden Schroeenful, Sep 16th, 2005 @ 10:38am

    Mr. Masnick, our brand name is LEGO(C) brand building blocks, and not "Lego." Please refer to us properly in the future or risk continued taunting.

    Sincerley,

    Klasden Shroeenful
    Brand Policeman
    LEGO Company

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    Re: Repeated requests

    identicon
    James Brown, Sep 16th, 2005 @ 4:49pm

    Mr. Shroeenful, the brand name LEGO(C) infringes on our brand name, LEGACY. "LEGO(C)", pronounced "LEGO-SEE" clearly is in violation of our registered marks. Please cease using this infringing name in the future or risk continued taunting by me and my firm.
    Sincerley,
    James Brown
    Brand Policeman
    LEGACY News Services

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    Re: pfft

    identicon
    ConceptJunkie, Sep 19th, 2005 @ 9:37am

    Tinker Toys? Lincoln Logs?

    We had rocks... and donkey femurs. And we loved 'em.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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