Aside the basic capitalist shit like premium prices for low quality products?
Other companies make products and sell the, and to do that sustainable they have to sell stuff for money. They sometimes also have to protect their trademark with copyright laws and such.
Lego however goes beyond that. Lego has in the past abused copyright and trademark law to bully smaller competitors, for example sue competitors for selling minifigures that do not look similar to Lego’s own, then had the german customs authority seize shipments to a store because that store has products by those competitors in stock even though the competitors already took out the minifigures for the european market. Also, Lego sued another, tiny store over it’s logo, because that store’s logo contained a brick (but was completely dissimilar to Lego’s own logo). And Lego always tries to publicly justify such behavior with ‘concerns for customers’ safety’ while buying their parts from the same Chinese factories as most of their competitors.
I find that unethical enough to label them evil and not buy new Lego for my niece’s presents.
They try to bankrupt small shop owners and producers by sueing them until they can’t financially recover, even if those shop owners would be in the right. And at the same time they don’t sue Schwarz-Group (Lidl) for doing the same stuff as the smaller shops, because Schwarz Lawyers could easily counter them and win.
They also live with the constant fear, that someone will sue them to remove their trademark name, as it is too commonly used as a synonym to bricks. Thats why they even youtubers wrongly calling competitors products Lego.
Aside the basic capitalist shit like premium prices for low quality products?
Other companies make products and sell the, and to do that sustainable they have to sell stuff for money. They sometimes also have to protect their trademark with copyright laws and such.
Lego however goes beyond that. Lego has in the past abused copyright and trademark law to bully smaller competitors, for example sue competitors for selling minifigures that do not look similar to Lego’s own, then had the german customs authority seize shipments to a store because that store has products by those competitors in stock even though the competitors already took out the minifigures for the european market. Also, Lego sued another, tiny store over it’s logo, because that store’s logo contained a brick (but was completely dissimilar to Lego’s own logo). And Lego always tries to publicly justify such behavior with ‘concerns for customers’ safety’ while buying their parts from the same Chinese factories as most of their competitors.
I find that unethical enough to label them evil and not buy new Lego for my niece’s presents.
They try to bankrupt small shop owners and producers by sueing them until they can’t financially recover, even if those shop owners would be in the right. And at the same time they don’t sue Schwarz-Group (Lidl) for doing the same stuff as the smaller shops, because Schwarz Lawyers could easily counter them and win.
They also live with the constant fear, that someone will sue them to remove their trademark name, as it is too commonly used as a synonym to bricks. Thats why they even youtubers wrongly calling competitors products Lego.