I guess shame and repentance are not in the list of words that Lepin learned in the process of doing business. Because in just less than two weeks after the release of the first Master Builders set, the LEGO Star Wars Betrayal at Cloud City (75222), Lepin has just released its own counterfeit version of this set and has made it available for sale via online selling platform AliExpress. This is in spite of the fact that the original set is slated to be released on September 13. This shameless act of copying and selling a fake LEGO Star Wars Betrayal At Cloud City (75222) is further magnified by the fact that Chinese courts has already declared Lepin guilty of violating copyright infringement against The LEGO Group.
LEGO has been actively fighting for its intellectual property rights for the past few years, with one fake LEGO dealer in South Korea receiving a court sentence for selling counterfeit LEGO products. And with its recent win over its legal battle against Lepin, I hope that the full extent of the law will be consistently applied against the copycat company. It hurts LEGO set designers who poured out their ingenuity and creative work in coming up with such excellent sets, and perhaps even more the LEGO fan community who are patiently waiting for the release of these upcoming sets.
So if you’re a true-blue LEGO fan, do not support this kind of blatant copyright violation and be sure to only purchase original LEGO sets from legitimate sources such as your local LEGO Store and at shop.LEGO.com, Thanks to Brick Fanatics for the heads up.
LEGO is freaking expensive. Unlike Apple, who took exchange rates into consideration, thus maintaining a more or less pricing stateside, LEGO sets are awfully expensive in some countries. The exorbitant asking price is fueling the counterfeits popularity. Plus, LEGO has the practice of retiring sets even they are less than 10 years old and so… Anyways, perhaps it is time to rethink their pricing strategy as a whole.
It may not make a sweeping win, but it will help. For example, the Millennium Falcon from Solo movie is $169.99 in the US, but it cost 279.99 SGD in Singapore. That’s like 50 SGD premium over what you could buy in the US. Ask yourself, does it make any sense at all? I think not. Personally, I have not fallen for counterfeits, but one thing is for sure: I stopped buying UCS for a long time.
I have quite a handful, mostly from the 90s, and early 2000. Before asking people not to support fakes, LEGO should ask itself why it is happening in the first place. The law of supply and demand is pure and simple. When demand for so-called more affordable pricing cannot be met, someone, somewhere will step in and fill the void.
It is easy for one with disposable income to say don’t support fake LEGO sets. But what for someone who have lesser income, but love LEGO as much? Then again, it’s all about LEGO’s targeted market. Maybe middle income and below aren’t what they are after. I live in Singapore, and the pricing for LEGO is beyond ridiculous here. I ever paid for a brand new, from shop, UCS Imperial Star Destroyer for 999 SGD when it just launched. That’s hell of a lot of money.
I think LEGO know about the price on Asian, and Middle East countries. But they can’t do much since different countries have different taxation laws on imported products.
Unbelievable arrogance. I hope the courts cripple them.
Official set release date for Betrayal at Cloud City is slated for September 13? No problem, they (Lepin) run their usual policy: pre-sell with at least 30 days for delivery (they need to wait for the official release date to be able to buy the copy to “reverse engineer” it. This is the message I got from AliExpress. I retained the original text, with no revisions whatsoever, so please do mind the grammar and try to decipher as best as you can.
From AliExpress:
“Dear Friend,
It’s PRE-SELL item now.
Please kindly help extend 30 days more for shipment arrange time.
Thank you very much for your understand!
Material: Environment friendly material.
Bricks number: 3149 pcs
Package: No original box. New in sealed bag bubble wrap (Toys and instructions send together)”
According to sources from the LEGO Ambassador Network, the case is still on court, and no final verdict has been given yet.
Hmmm… it would be interesting if The LEGO Group themselves will actually release a report about this.
Did LEGO really win the lawsuit or LEPIN just disregarded the judgment of the court ? I have read that LEPIN has been forced to stop using branding of “LEGO”, or similar, confusing wordings such as “LEPIN” and stop using Ninjago, Chima, Nexo Knights and lookalike wordings. However, on Lepin’s official website, lepinworld.com, products such as Lepin Chima, Lepin Ninjago and Lepin Nexo Knight are still being sold. I’m really confused and want to know how this war will end.