A Lego fan has designed a small truck out of Lego bricks, only a few weeks later he discovers it on the Chinese online marketplace AliExpress.
TheReddit user KuffuGuenis passionate about building MOCs, i.e. his own brick models, of Japanese kei trucks. In recent months, he has alreadypublished several designs on the MOC platform Rebrickable, where he sells the corresponding instructions to fans for a pittance.
At the end of March 2026, however, KuffuGuen discovered by chance that his design for the JDM Kei Truck had been stolen and was now being sold as a complete seton the Chinese online marketplace AliExpress. He himself did not give his consent for this, nor does he receive a share of the sales.
Frustrating to see how designs are simply copied
https://www.reddit.com/r/keitruck/comments/1s4zjt4/psa_be_careful_buying_lego_kei_truck_models_on/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Now he is warning people not to buy the sets with his designs. Not only because he was robbed, but also to warn people about the quality.
I recently found out that a model I designed was being sold without permission on AliExpress. Nowadaysnot particularly surprising, but worth mentioning is the quality of these copies.
From what I’ve seen (and heard from a few people who’ve contacted me), the knock-offs tend to: (…) Have inconsistent clamping force (some connections are too loose, others way too tight). [And] feel less reliable overall when building or handling.
So even if it looks similar in the listing, the actual build quality and build experience can vary quite a bit. It’s frustrating to see designs simply copied, but honestly I’m more worried that people will end up paying for an inferior product here without realizing it. (…)
Not an isolated case
A few hours before the Reddit post in question, KuffuGuenpublished a post on the subject. However, it was in the wrong thread and was removed by the mods, which is why only the comments are still available. There it shows,that similar things have already happened to many people in the community. For exampleCricketBen writes:
Yeah, happened to me too with two of my MOCs. On Rebrickable thereis a pretty good guide,how to get them removed from AliExpress. It’s a bit of effort, but it worked flawlessly for me, and I haven’t seen any of my stuff for sale anywhere since.
However,even sets without available instructions are not safe. For example, DistractedBuilder reports:
Same with me! I find it quite fascinating because in my case someone has gone to the trouble of rebuilding my model with 3,200 parts. There are no publicly available instructions. They did a pretty good job, but failed on the more complex parts.
I take it as a compliment, but I’m thinking of informing Lego. My model is currently under review at Lego Ideas, so technically Lego owns the rights at the moment.
The most abstruse story is probably told by themfledge. Not only was a clamping brick model stolen from him, but his band name was also misused for a T-shirt.
So he decided to threaten a lawyer. However, as he didn’t have one, he claimed to be represented by Lionel Hutz – the well-known Simpsons character. With success! But the cherry on top of the cream cake came some time later:
Yep, I designed [the set] 910017 Kakapo and it keeps showing up for me on AliExpress.
I also found a listing for a jacket that had my band on it along with a whole bunch of other punk bands, most of them misspelled. I teased the seller a bit and told him that my lawyer Lionel Hutz was going to come after them for a few hundred thousand in royalties, after which they removed it.
A friend of a buddy actually saw one in the wild somewhere in Italy and sent a photo. It’s crazy that someone actually bought it.
What can you do about it?
If the instructions were uploaded via Rebrickable, you canassert your rights via instructions on the page. However, if the thieves got hold of your model in another way, for example by reproducing it, it is much more difficult.
In theory, you have to prove that the copyright actually belongs to you. However, the mere threat of legal consequences may also suffice. It is also possible that you will receive compensation. Overall, however, the success rates are not too high apart from Rebrickable. A copyright lawyer explains how complicated the copyright of clamping bricks is in the link box above.
