Trying out LEGO Cuusoo

After the LEGO Cuusoo Beta launched in English last week, I’ve been keeping an eye on the site to see what people are up to. As announced last week, winning projects have to reach 10,000 supporters, and the winning designer keeps 1% of the proceeds from the LEGO set’s sales.

Projects from several Japanese builders are also available on the English site, including one of Hidaka‘s classic, oft-imitated pianos.

LEGO piano by Hidaka

Other cool projects include a Back to the Future Delorean and Macross/Robotech Valkyrie.

LEGO Back to the Future Delorean LEGO Macross Valkyrie

Of course, we here at TBB don’t want to be left out! Dan already mentioned his Protype Attack Mecha Alpha Zero design, while Nannan submitted his massive “Mirage” collaboration with Tyler:

LEGO Mirage diorama

I thought I’d go a bit smaller, with a couple of my favorite vehicles — a wildland fire engine and WW2 ambulance:

LEGO 6x6 TATRA Fire Truck LEGO WW2 Dodge WC54 Ambulance

It’ll be interesting to see where all of this goes!

9 comments on “Trying out LEGO Cuusoo

  1. matija

    I was really pleasantly surprised to see international LEGO cuusoo. I also joined in, and put 2 of my recent creations online just to give it a try. Site has a lot of things still to work out – but it’s a beta, so it’s understandable.

    But, my happiness went away and turned into disappointment when there appeared a new user (naming himself cusoo) – I have no idea who that is – began to steal mine and some other people’s creations and put those on the website with false info claiming that it’s his/hers.

    You can see those here – http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/cusoo#projects

    Both me and another person with stolen creations began a topic and reported a problem to the admins, but our creations are still there. :( Which I really don’t like. I think once I reported this, creations had to be removed immediately – as I gave a solid proof that those are mine, and also some other guys on the site started to comment that creations are indeed stolen.

    There is some discussion over this on the support forums on the website, and so far they don’t seem to have a fine solution to the problem.

    Feel free to join there, or here and say your opinion on this. You can read the thread or join here – http://getsatisfaction.com/lego_cuusoo/topics/stolen_creations

  2. rushiosan

    I don’t believe on Back to the Future franchise for 2 reasons: the movie have about 20 years old and we have no other sequel being produced at this moment. Okay, the game came for some console a couple years ago, but still a “vintage” product, not attracting the most part of nowadays children. The second reason is about the franchise purchase itself – it’s too expensive for a low profit risk. LEGO wouldn’t do that.

    Someone must submit LOTR creations and support this franchise. The Hobbit is coming to theaters soon… that means a good opportunity to start selling older sets first, then release specific sets for the incoming movie later. We needed this line since 2001, when Harry Potter came out replacing the Castle theme for a while. :(

  3. Tananavalley

    I would think that LEGO Group would not produce any franchise models unless it had an agreement with the license owner. I am sure a more generic model that is popular and within a piece limit will be produced.

  4. Tim Courtney

    Hi Majita,

    I’m on the LEGO CUUSOO team. Thanks for making us aware of the infringement on the Get Satisfaction account.

    We’re sorry this happened to you, and we’re now working with our partner to suspend the account, remove the models, and inform them of their violation. Because the website is still in beta, we are refining the methods we use to detect and handle these situations in a timely fashion, and also have thoughts on deterring them from happening in the first place. Rest assured, we won’t let someone collect votes and steal credit for original work.

    Thanks,

    Tim

  5. SavaTheAggie

    I’m a little surprised that Nannan gave up all commercial rights to his creation. Of course since it was a joint effort, he can’t really give up the rights to it, only his own, so now the creation is owned by LEGO and Tyler.

    I was very disapointed to see you have to give up all commercial rights just to submit a creation. I would understand giving up rights should the creation be turned into a set (only logical), but to give up all of your commercial rights the second you upload your project to the website? No thanks.

    In the very likely event your creation is not chosen, you will never be able to do anything with it again, commercially. No commercially published photographs, no selling instructions, etc. In theory I could see LEGO even arguing you can’t publically display the creation if you receive financial incentive.

  6. matija

    True Anthony. This is the “read between the lines” part of agreement that most of the users will overlook. I hope it won’t come out that bad you think it will. But it sure is worth to think about that – and it is still in beta, so who knows, maybe the terms will also change a bit in the final product.

    Thanks Tim, I have seen today that the stolen models are removed and user suspended. I am still concerned about this happening in the future, and also in combination with this what Sava is saying – it could become quite a problem. I sure hope you will solve it all and the site will turn out great, because it nevertheless is the great idea and I really appreciate the effort and the opportunity LEGO and cuusoo gives us here.

  7. Andrew Post author

    These concerns are the very reasons why I submitted small, non-IP models myself. It is indeed very unlikely that super-large models or models based on third-party licenses (based on intellectual property, or IP) that LEGO doesn’t own will ever see the light of day, even if they reach 10,000 supporters.

  8. rushiosan

    Playability and building should be put at the top when designing a set. Seriously, I really like some of the creations above, but most of them have incommon (sometimes annoying) building techniques, that definitely could not be used effectively on a commercial scale. Doing so would bring some quality problems to customers. Want an example? The tile clip combination may ruin your clips, making them loose or even breaking some. The plastic composition used to make these pieces isn’t as rubbish as robot minifig arms (used on SW battle droids), which are, obviously, much more flexible.

    Another problem, in my opinion, is related to stability of the model – also directly linked to playability. There are some oustanding building techniques that cannot be used in a set that will be held by children. There’s a difference between putting a fragile creation on a display (just for looks in your shelf) and giving them to 7-14yo kids as toys. The second one requires much, much more stability and playability options, and is, in fact, the point where LEGO focus at most when designing their products…

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