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A statement regarding custom items
We wanted to briefly state publicly that Brick Owl is only for the sale of items that are either created directly by LEGO, or licensed by LEGO. We do not currently, and do not intend to allow the sale of Third Party items.
We do allow the sale of non-part based Custom items, so for example Custom Minifigures made of LEGO parts, or Custom Instructions that instruct how to build an item with LEGO parts.
We respect the decision of other marketplaces to operate as they see fit. Please do of of course let us know using the contact link at the bottom of any page if you identify items for sale with descriptions indicating they are non-LEGO.
We do allow the sale of non-part based Custom items, so for example Custom Minifigures made of LEGO parts, or Custom Instructions that instruct how to build an item with LEGO parts.
We respect the decision of other marketplaces to operate as they see fit. Please do of of course let us know using the contact link at the bottom of any page if you identify items for sale with descriptions indicating they are non-LEGO.
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Incidentally, can someone tell me how to change my profile pic? I don't see a way to do this under the profile settings.
Cheers, Eric
PS sorry for not getting back to you by mail (busy as always) about the 'unexpected', so while I'm at it: with great pleasure ;-)
> Nice to see some other BrickLink faces here. I just reactivated my Brick Owl account (which had been dormant for a while).
>
> Incidentally, can someone tell me how to change my profile pic? I don't see a way to do this under the profile settings.
https://www.brickowl.com/forum#/profile/picture
I hadn't followed the forums too closely, but I was wondering why there was a sudden little boom in BrickSync-related emails... Now I know!
Does someone know if BrickSync needs to run on an open computer all the time?
http://www.bricksync.net/guidefaq.html#faqturnoff
Tyson.
As a sidenote: A long time ago, BL contributors added the pieces they had sitting to be sold, over time, people started adding each and every stickered part from each set, right after they got inventoried. Such thing isn't the habbit (afaik) on BO (but be my guest :-) ), just add the stickered items you have and wanna sell, the rest will be added by others when they need such. Obviously this will cause a big difference in available parts between BO and BL, but that's not much of an issue I think...
Besides that, there is indeed a lot of catalog work to be done, images, sizes, weights, creating new figs of newer sets (old ones are 'in' but need to be attached to sets) etc.
Whenever you need some guidance, just post and someone will help out (and as you can see, you'll be notified when someone indicates your username in the reply, so you don't need to sit tight behind your screen).
It is a pleasure to see some extra people comming over who have a heart for LEGO and wanna chime in on filling the gaps, the more will help, the faster it will go :-)
I do like the idea of earning catalog credits!
Figs from new sets have a more automated process (see other recent thread).
Yes, the overview could be improved, but that's from your point of view being a newbie (ROFLMAO), for older users it has already improved a lot compared to BO's early days. Obviously it's not like on BL, but that's what this site is: not a 'clone' of BL (to remain in 'this weeks' spirit LOL) and it shouldn't be a clone 'ever' IMHO
The catalog credits are indeed nice, usefull and they do have a personal purpose (or motivation) as well: you get rewarded some way, a freebie, free fees, free featuring on home page, whatever you feel is worthed for yourself, so in a way, what you do catalog wise will be rewarded somehow, not a mountain high, but that shouldn't be the 'drive' in the first place: if you like the product you deal with, rewards are only 'secondary' ;-)
Thanks for that statement, with which I wholeheartedly agree!
However what about the "chromed" parts some sellers create and offer for sale? How would anyone know which is genuine LEGO vs custom chromed, especially parts that LEGO have actually produced?
Also what about those "rare" parts in colors never sold, presumably obtained from LEGO land etc?
What about the parts in unreleased colors? Presumably they haven't been obtained with TLG's knowledge and/or approval?
> @Lawrence
>
> What about the parts in unreleased colors? Presumably they haven't been obtained with TLG's knowledge and/or approval?
There are plenty of ways of such parts reaching the marketplace, the most likely being sold by TLG themselves to LUGs, private commissions, LEGOLAND, etc. Also, a colour may have been an actual commercial release in a set that has not been inventoried or that has been lost to the mists of time. Previously unknown sets still turn up fairly regularly.
TLG does not approve of resellers full stop, ergo all resellers of parts are operating without their approval. People often say "Lego refer people to BL all the time" - no they don't, customer service staff at Lego refer people, not because they're following company policy but because they're trying to be helpful.
>
> People often say "Lego refer people to BL all the time" - no they don't, customer service staff at Lego refer people, not because they're following company policy but because they're trying to be helpful.
Last few times I have been directed to Peeron, sales rep "appeared" to be "unaware" of re-seller sites [-X
Wikipedia has been around since 2001 and has slowly grown into a fairly respectable reference database. Something like that should exist for LEGO products and I’m concerned that Brick Owl may only be a replay of BrickLink history instead of a Wikipedia-style LEGO reference database. I’m not sure I want to contribute my efforts to building the BrickOwl database, which is why I’m asking these questions.
I see that the catalog is open source, which I have always praised Brick Owl for, even in the BrickLink forums. However, I also see that images are excluded from that. Who owns the pictures and why are they not shared openly?
As for the catalog itself, I am wondering why LEGO catalogs are not included. I have a fairly large collection of Dacta/Education catalogs and am always looking to fill holes in my collection. I can’t do that here?
With regards to catalogs/books etc we chose to focus on the current categories that we may expand to other categories later.
For any other questions like this it would probably be best to contact us directly using the link at the bottom of the page.
That being said, theoretically, a copyright holder _can_ decide to release a future version under a non-free license (in that case, the previous version under an open license would remain usable and free). But when we submit data to BrickOwl, we only grant them an unlimited/unrestricted copyright _license_. In other words, we grant them the rights to use, but not the copyright itself.
A change of license (for a future version) is only possible if _all_ copyright holders agree. And since there's no way to track the thousands of people who contributed to the BrickOwl catalog, the BrickOwl database is stuck under an Open Database license forever.
And if that reassures you, many of us maintain a snapshot of the entire (and free/open) BrickOwl database on disk. :D
> What about the parts in unreleased colors? Presumably they haven't been obtained with TLG's knowledge and/or approval?
Not necessarily true: A couple of years back I grabbed a lot of items in officially unreleased colors on the Bay, when I talked to the (UK) seller (not a LEGO seller) he told me he was offered to buy a couple of boxes from Legoland Windsor that had been sitting in their storage for years, they where cleaning out their old stock (lot's of old colors). It was an official purchase both from the seller and the people who bought from him...
TLG also dumps a lot of their try-outs/test parts in bulk pallets with other parts which oftenly are being sold on the German market, sooner or later they end up in the secondary or third maket flows.
I own red and transclear 9V trainrails for example, white and blue 9V trainbuffers (I know yellow exists as well), got garage roller door sections in green, brown and tan, Train Pantograph Shoes in 8 different colors (besides the traditional 'black only') and plenty more, can't tell for each special part it got on the market with TLG's approval, but a lot did, so why would it be a problem selling them?
Some of the things BL has done the past few years has been questioned and has been shot down by users, yet most of it remained in place, and few 'left' because of it. The recent announcement has once again triggered some people to move over here, some by syncing, few said 'we left BL', but the vast majority of people did nothing, they complained, they are still discussing it on the forum, their shop is still open, their account is still active. So in the end, they 'accept' the change and in a couple of weeks/months this will have been another storm in a glass of water.
So your question (from my point of view) looks pretty irrelevant, yes the site may listen to comments/complains made by the users, but might just as well ignore it totally, should the site feel it is warranted for themselves.
That said, if you look at the sites top forum bar 'site updates' and you browse trough it, then you will notice that a lot of things have been changed and improved the past 4 years, a lot of those changes have been made on suggestion of/requests by very regular users, both by sending private mails and forumposts, so be assured that the site is very open to suggestions/remarks/comments/requests of any kind to improve the sites functionalities/features. Ofcourse those things are nothing compared to what BL has decided to implement the past years, but from my point of view, whether one likes the changes or not, in most cases it's 'take it or leave it' ;-)
Can't speak for admin when it comes down to his ideas about a hardcore decision about the sites running and the way it operates, so far the experiance is very positive here, the above message by admin is comforting for most LEGO lovers and site users, the database is opensource, personal images remain protected towards third parties, so up untill this point, the site and his owner has done nothing to upset any user in such matter, I think we can cherish that ;-)
Besides that: Welcome to BO, you'll soon figure out it's a pleasure to be around :-)
I do like the design over here though quite a bit in terms of look, feel, etc. The developer has done a great job with the HMI! :-)
> We wanted to briefly state publicly that Brick Owl is only for the sale of items that are either created directly by LEGO, or licensed by LEGO. We do not currently, and do not intend to allow the sale of Third Party items.
>
> We do allow the sale of non-part based Custom items, so for example Custom Minifigures made of LEGO parts, or Custom Instructions that instruct how to build an item with LEGO parts.
>
> We respect the decision of other marketplaces to operate as they see fit. Please do of of course let us know using the contact link at the bottom of any page if you identify items for sale with descriptions indicating they are non-LEGO.
Reading this, how should I see the custom sets in the catalog?
https://www.brickowl.com/catalog/custom-sets
I assume the sets use LEGO parts only, but is that the only requirement?
Can any seller just add anything? Something like that Superman statue is probably violating someone's IP rights and it is unlikely that many people will be looking to buy a 17.324 part custom set.
> @WoutR Good point on the superman item, that's been removed.
Thanks
If you are serious about the statement in the opening post, then
(at https://www.brickowl.com/catalog/create)
1) Why does the description at the page where you create an item say: " You can submit either official Lego items, or custom Lego compatible items. If the item is official Lego, it will almost always be accepted, otherwise it is up to the discretion of Brick Owl whether to accept it or not. "
That sentence does not match your statement that "Brick Owl is only for the sale of items that are either created directly by LEGO, or licensed by LEGO. We do not currently, and do not intend to allow the sale of Third Party items." LEGO compatible is something completely different, it is a slogan that many clone brand use...
2) Why do I need to enter a BRAND when creating a new item? This suggests that non-LEGO items could be acceptable, and not only "non-part based Custom items, so for example Custom Minifigures made of LEGO parts, or Custom Instructions that instruct how to build an item with LEGO parts."
This feels exactly like the vague statements that BrickLink has made over the years. We know what happened there. It does not give me any confidence in the intentions of Brick Owl for the future.
In my opinion, to prevent problems that we see on other websites, I would also like to see a statement that replica's of LEGO items are not allowed. No similar molds but in other colors, no custom prints that look like genuine expensive items and so on. Personally, I also dislike custom chromed parts because they undermine the market for the genuine items. The only possible exception that I can think of are replacement rubber train wheel rims for the 4,5V and 12V locomotives (because the original items have aged and degenerated beyond use), and even those should not be confused with the originals.
As far as I see, the only acceptable "brands" are
- LEGO
- Custom item, made from LEGO parts only
- Custom instructions, using LEGO parts only
- Custom replacement item
(and I suggest limiting the options here using a drop-down list)
And that last one really, really needs a good motivation to be accepted because it undermines the market for rare, genuine and valuable items. "Hard to find" is not an excuse, degradation of the material of functional items might be.
In response to your statement, we do not permit "Custom replacement item" or "replacement rubber train wheel rims". As per the original statement, Brick Owl is only for the sale of items that are either created directly by LEGO, or licensed by LEGO.
Thank you for the update. Much better :-)
Personally, I think the description of the Brand on that form could still use some clarification.
The current description is a bit confusing (All items aren't usually ..). Also, I do not know if there is a more specific description somewhere about which kinds of custom items are allowed.