BigDaedy
Copy vs. Original or why you shouldn't mess with me
What is going on here?
To give y'all a little background: Creating a near perfect rendition of the Bombardier Traxx locomotive with Lego bricks has been a passion of mine since 2015/2016. This project underwent several drastical design changes within in the last seven years, thanks to improvements made between four European builders -
Raised, DennisakaTechno, Nicolas Tbx and myself with honourably mentioning Beck here as well. We spent countless hours inspiring each other with feedback, criticism, new ideas and pushed ourselves beyond our limits to create our vision of a truly "European" locomotive. Raised wrote up a nice summary of this effort in several articles on BMR and had invited Dennis and me to participate at the Legoworld event in Utrecht back in 2019.
Despite the following pandemic, we still managed to attend several events together with our Traxx mocs:
- BSBT in three consecutive years '20-'22
- Arnhemworld in late 2021, where we stumbled across NicolasTbx
- Our own organised event the "NLGM" in '22 and '23
Over the years we constantly improved the Traxx models, as more parts came available and our skill level as builders grew aswell.
A few days ago I received word, that a German/Austrian company by the name of "Stone-heap.com" published the left model of the Traxx locomotive.
That shouldn't be that much of a big deal right?
Wrong.
And here is the reason why:
The "head of design" of said company is a guy called "Germanrailwaybuilder". He mostly builds modern 8-wide German rolling stock and he appeared sometime in 2020 within the German Lego community and pushed his models on sites like rebrickable. Over the time we as members of the Lego train community noticed, that several of his "mocs" were in reality heavily inspired by mocs from other members of the community (including many of our own), so we were rather vigilant of this guy. In 2019 we actually had several problems with people copying our mocs and not declaring them as a copy and even one guy selling instructions on ebay, hence our initial alertness. So when the Stoneheap company appeared and Germanrailwaybuilder became part of it, we quickly associated his work ethics with that of the whole company.
Fast forward to the last weekend of april 2023.
Location: Noppenbahner L-Gauge meeting or short, "NLGM" in Wörrstadt.
Our very own public event to share our models with the fans and community, but more important to meet our fellow builder friends and having fun with our hobby!
Germanrailwaybuilder alongside a friend of his were one of the first visitors of the day, with him dressed in an attire clearly stating his affiliation with Stoneheap and therefor representing his company.
His appearance made us very, very suspicious.
What is this guy doing here? Is he here just cause he likes Lego trains or does he have a different goal in mind?
Almost immediately we saw him taking close up pictures of most of the models present, with special interest in the various Traxx mocs and Vectrons present. At no time during his stay he tried to get in touch with any of the clearly marked official organisation team (me being one of them), but he chose to say some rather rude, arrogant things and frankly inmature remarks about our mocs, something along like "I can build better than that". At least that's the message that came through to us through his general behaviour during his stay.
On the second day he managed to one up his rude behavior even more and brought a box full of Stoneheap steam engines with him! Apparently he got permission from one of the other invited exhibitors, but it never appeared to him to ask the organisers. It was at that point when we politly told him, that we do not approve of this behavior at all at our show, but offered him to stay, if he donates for our cause (we got 5€ in total). In hindsight we should've kicked them out, but we didn't want to cause an unnecessary scene, even after his lack of driving and building skills made his loco crash into the back of my "tagnpps" waggon, partially destroying it (Still waiting for an apology btw). Ties managed to get video evidence of the aftermath (timestamp is 6:16 min). You can also see my loco driving around the layout in his other video.
After the event was over we internally discussed on actions regarding the behavior of him and his buddy. The "CEO" of Stoneheap got wind of our complaints, wanted to know what was going on and we issued a statement of what had happened. He apologized and promised us that despite this mishap of his employee, they prefer to be on good terms with us in the future.
It could've ended at that point but it hasn't.
On the 20th of May '23 Stoneheap published a teaser of their upcoming Traxx model . Does it look familiar to you?
I reached out to them via a private email and bluntly asked them why they stole my moc. Instead of answering me and thereby keeping things discreet, they published a statement containing an attached picture (without having my written authorization for it) and more or less tried to weasel their way out of this whole affair. Alternative link here.
Bogus claims include:
- Same reference model (fair enough)
- They have a DB license (who cares?)
- There is a limited range of parts to use to achieve certain details (lie)
- Some things can only be build in a certain way (lie)
- These similarities are completly coincidental (lie)
- Model was done way before I did mine (lie) -> Proof
- Model was finished before he attended NLGM (lie)
Also fun fact: In their statement, they clearly state that "First of all we would to emphasise that we as a complete team neither tolerate copyright nor is it openly practised by a team member."
They openly admit that they don't recognise and adhere to the rules of copyright as part of their company policy!!!
Can you imagine how pissed I am right now? When I confronted them on their Instagram page, several of my comments telling the backstory to the public, whilst also backing my claims where either countered with their bogus arguments stated above or were deleted almost instantly. Any comment contradicting their side of the story and backing up mine were deleted. Comments praising their "innovative design" and praising them were fixed on top.
I even confronted them with wip's from their own stream, clearly showing how they had a totally different approach one month prior to NLGM.
Links right here:
I am being silenced and bullied into submission by a group of thieves and liars and they expect me to let it happen so they can scrounge money from unsuspecting customers. I know that in internal Stoneheap chat groups I am being refered to as a "Lego Fanboy" and that my behaviour is "affig" (monkey-like). There is a crusade going on in Instagram, were they try to paint a picture of me being an attention seeking wh*re, who wants to get famous by creating a massive ruckus (couldn't be farther from the truth, picture me more like a Ron Swanson kind of guy).
Is this really the way how you treat a fellow member of the community? With total disrespect and arrogance? Is it really that hard to give proper credit to the original builders?
Fact is, me and the other builders created something very special and unique over the last seven years and contributed an insane amount of inspiration and models to the European Lego train community and I won't back down on this. It's way too important.
So, what do you as community think about all this?
Copy vs. Original or why you shouldn't mess with me
What is going on here?
To give y'all a little background: Creating a near perfect rendition of the Bombardier Traxx locomotive with Lego bricks has been a passion of mine since 2015/2016. This project underwent several drastical design changes within in the last seven years, thanks to improvements made between four European builders -
Raised, DennisakaTechno, Nicolas Tbx and myself with honourably mentioning Beck here as well. We spent countless hours inspiring each other with feedback, criticism, new ideas and pushed ourselves beyond our limits to create our vision of a truly "European" locomotive. Raised wrote up a nice summary of this effort in several articles on BMR and had invited Dennis and me to participate at the Legoworld event in Utrecht back in 2019.
Despite the following pandemic, we still managed to attend several events together with our Traxx mocs:
- BSBT in three consecutive years '20-'22
- Arnhemworld in late 2021, where we stumbled across NicolasTbx
- Our own organised event the "NLGM" in '22 and '23
Over the years we constantly improved the Traxx models, as more parts came available and our skill level as builders grew aswell.
A few days ago I received word, that a German/Austrian company by the name of "Stone-heap.com" published the left model of the Traxx locomotive.
That shouldn't be that much of a big deal right?
Wrong.
And here is the reason why:
The "head of design" of said company is a guy called "Germanrailwaybuilder". He mostly builds modern 8-wide German rolling stock and he appeared sometime in 2020 within the German Lego community and pushed his models on sites like rebrickable. Over the time we as members of the Lego train community noticed, that several of his "mocs" were in reality heavily inspired by mocs from other members of the community (including many of our own), so we were rather vigilant of this guy. In 2019 we actually had several problems with people copying our mocs and not declaring them as a copy and even one guy selling instructions on ebay, hence our initial alertness. So when the Stoneheap company appeared and Germanrailwaybuilder became part of it, we quickly associated his work ethics with that of the whole company.
Fast forward to the last weekend of april 2023.
Location: Noppenbahner L-Gauge meeting or short, "NLGM" in Wörrstadt.
Our very own public event to share our models with the fans and community, but more important to meet our fellow builder friends and having fun with our hobby!
Germanrailwaybuilder alongside a friend of his were one of the first visitors of the day, with him dressed in an attire clearly stating his affiliation with Stoneheap and therefor representing his company.
His appearance made us very, very suspicious.
What is this guy doing here? Is he here just cause he likes Lego trains or does he have a different goal in mind?
Almost immediately we saw him taking close up pictures of most of the models present, with special interest in the various Traxx mocs and Vectrons present. At no time during his stay he tried to get in touch with any of the clearly marked official organisation team (me being one of them), but he chose to say some rather rude, arrogant things and frankly inmature remarks about our mocs, something along like "I can build better than that". At least that's the message that came through to us through his general behaviour during his stay.
On the second day he managed to one up his rude behavior even more and brought a box full of Stoneheap steam engines with him! Apparently he got permission from one of the other invited exhibitors, but it never appeared to him to ask the organisers. It was at that point when we politly told him, that we do not approve of this behavior at all at our show, but offered him to stay, if he donates for our cause (we got 5€ in total). In hindsight we should've kicked them out, but we didn't want to cause an unnecessary scene, even after his lack of driving and building skills made his loco crash into the back of my "tagnpps" waggon, partially destroying it (Still waiting for an apology btw). Ties managed to get video evidence of the aftermath (timestamp is 6:16 min). You can also see my loco driving around the layout in his other video.
After the event was over we internally discussed on actions regarding the behavior of him and his buddy. The "CEO" of Stoneheap got wind of our complaints, wanted to know what was going on and we issued a statement of what had happened. He apologized and promised us that despite this mishap of his employee, they prefer to be on good terms with us in the future.
It could've ended at that point but it hasn't.
On the 20th of May '23 Stoneheap published a teaser of their upcoming Traxx model . Does it look familiar to you?
I reached out to them via a private email and bluntly asked them why they stole my moc. Instead of answering me and thereby keeping things discreet, they published a statement containing an attached picture (without having my written authorization for it) and more or less tried to weasel their way out of this whole affair. Alternative link here.
Bogus claims include:
- Same reference model (fair enough)
- They have a DB license (who cares?)
- There is a limited range of parts to use to achieve certain details (lie)
- Some things can only be build in a certain way (lie)
- These similarities are completly coincidental (lie)
- Model was done way before I did mine (lie) -> Proof
- Model was finished before he attended NLGM (lie)
Also fun fact: In their statement, they clearly state that "First of all we would to emphasise that we as a complete team neither tolerate copyright nor is it openly practised by a team member."
They openly admit that they don't recognise and adhere to the rules of copyright as part of their company policy!!!
Can you imagine how pissed I am right now? When I confronted them on their Instagram page, several of my comments telling the backstory to the public, whilst also backing my claims where either countered with their bogus arguments stated above or were deleted almost instantly. Any comment contradicting their side of the story and backing up mine were deleted. Comments praising their "innovative design" and praising them were fixed on top.
I even confronted them with wip's from their own stream, clearly showing how they had a totally different approach one month prior to NLGM.
Links right here:
I am being silenced and bullied into submission by a group of thieves and liars and they expect me to let it happen so they can scrounge money from unsuspecting customers. I know that in internal Stoneheap chat groups I am being refered to as a "Lego Fanboy" and that my behaviour is "affig" (monkey-like). There is a crusade going on in Instagram, were they try to paint a picture of me being an attention seeking wh*re, who wants to get famous by creating a massive ruckus (couldn't be farther from the truth, picture me more like a Ron Swanson kind of guy).
Is this really the way how you treat a fellow member of the community? With total disrespect and arrogance? Is it really that hard to give proper credit to the original builders?
Fact is, me and the other builders created something very special and unique over the last seven years and contributed an insane amount of inspiration and models to the European Lego train community and I won't back down on this. It's way too important.
So, what do you as community think about all this?