By what do you mean "stuck"? Brickfilming isn't stuck anywhere. It's merely a hobby for people who want to move on to making films in the future or taking a film course at university.

If you want a LEGO film to go to the cinemas, there is that Warner Brothers thing. But, I heard that's only gonna be some CGI trash or whatever. I do hope they will get some animated brickfilms into the cinema. But, for now, we'll have to enjoy the pleasure of watching them on the Web.

I would love it if LEGO were to make a feature length brickfilm with stop-motion.  I'd want to be a part of that.

It's not entirely practical, but there would be some advantages.  It would probably be best if they used stop motion for everything but the faces and leave them to some special effects people to animate faces.

Only thing is, if brickfilms did become a type of film making in the future then it would all have to be official films for the Lego company. I doubt you'd be able to make independent films because of copyright laws, so pretty much all brickfilms would have to be kid-friendly or whatever.

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I think you'd be able to get away with it if the film only had a small release, like it only plays in one theater for a week, or goes to DVD or the internet. If you went the route of other indie movies and tried to get it released wider, the LEGO company would probably start taking issue with that.

LEGO seems to have definitely gotten less strict about their policy on derivative works. Before, you couldn't make anything related to LEGO without getting a cease and desist that wasn't a model. I think once they realized that, in this day and age, it would be impossible to control everything LEGO related, like brickfilms, so the appear to be more lax about it.

So ya, you'd probably be able to get away with it until you started getting world wide theater releases. Probably.

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Silents I was just trying to point out how off that sounds, I mean lego is the medium we use so if you think about it as long as we didnt mention the companies name or show the logo or anything you would think you can get away with it legally, but then again its a very specific medium for stop motion so they could use that against people.

Just on the issue of the copyright stuff, I've looked into that a bit in the past.  Basically, LEGO originally patented the "stud and tube interlocking" design.  The copyright did expire after x amount of time and now all these other companies have used their design (Megablok, Tyco, K'nex, and many others) so LEGO tried to sue them but the courts ruled that the design was too 'general', or something like that, and that LEGO couldn't have exclusive rights to the Stud and Tube etc.
Thing is, even if you had a way to keep from the copyrighted LEGO name from being seen, the minifigure designs are copyrighted.  You know how Megablok figures are very different from LEGO, both being instantly recognizable? That could have some legal problems.

This is just what I remember from reading some stuff about probably a year ago.  So, yeah, don't sue me if I'm wrong.

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Well, there are some professional studios that do traditional stop-motion animation (Aardman among them), so it wouldn't be completely unthinkable that LEGO might commission them to make official stop-motion LEGO films.  That being said, with the use of computer animation and cost/difficulty in making a feature-length stop-motion film, I doubt we'll be seeing one.  So, for the foreseeable future, I think it'll just remain as it is--a hobby.

But what I don't understand is... surely LEGO could just have renewed the patent/license when it ran out? 

As for the knock-off brands, virtually every one I can think of (except maybe K'nex, who to their credit have displayed some originality in their toy designs) have brick designs that are directly compatible with LEGO bricks.  How on earth is that too "general"?

In the United States, and I believe in many other countries as well, copyrights and patents can't be renewed; the are designed to last long enough for the original creator to make money, and then once they are up copyrighted material becomes part of the public domain, and anyone can make and sell a product of a formerly patented design. That's why anyone can sell a recording of jingle bells or make a knock off version of LEGO.

Last edited by backyardlegos (April 8, 2013 (09:54am))

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