Long Overdue Update to LEGO Ideas Guidelines and House Rules

LEGO Ideas recently updated their Guidelines and House Rules as well as their Terms of service. You can read the full update below as posted in the LEGO Ideas blog.

Here are my thoughts on the changes:

• I really like that projects based on LEGO Ideas sets that have a third party intellectual property (IP) license will not be allowed. This will help remove some of the clutter and a lot of the duplicate projects that are currently in the LEGO Ideas pipeline and are clogging things up for other projects.
• The piece limit is good, and long overdue in my opinion, but 3,000 pieces is still a very large threshold. Keep in mind that all of the Modular sets, many of the Creator Expert sets, and the larger Technic sets are all under 3,000 pieces.
• I don't feel that this was a huge issue, but it will clan things up a little bit.
• I have never tried to collaborate with anyone on a LEGO Ideas project, so I do not have any experience to base my comment off of, but this seems like a much simpler method of allowing collaboration.
• This update is essentially clarification on what was already implied in the Guidelines and House rules.
• Hopefully this will help make the project descriptions more useful. Many of the projects I see on LEGO Ideas have project descriptions that are either too long or too short, neither of which provide any benefit to the reader.
• Glad to see that projects reaching the 1,000 supporter mile stone will not be removed. This is a major mile stone, and should help give some credibility to the designer(s) for other projects they may post.
• Basically just updating verbiage making it clear that you can promote your LEGO Ideas project without infringing on any of LEGO Ideas property rights just as long as you do it for not-commercial reasons and in non-commercial ways.

Posted June 21, 2016

Today we've updated our Guidelines and House Rules and Terms of Service to clarify the range of submission we're able to produce as LEGO Ideas sets. This includes new limits to project size, scope, and subject matter. We’ve also simplified guidelines for collaborative projects. Here's a summary of the updates:

• Once we produce a LEGO Ideas set based on a third-party property, we will not accept more Ideas submissions based on that property. This sharpens our guideline on follow-up products based on LEGO Ideas submissions. Once we approve a licensed project for production through LEGO Ideas, we’ll archive other projects based on the same property and not accept new submissions based on the that property.
• Projects must fit in a single product box, so we’re setting a part count limit of 3,000 pcs. While we can’t count the pieces in your photos, if your model looks too big we’ll send it back and ask you to submit a smaller model at our own discretion.
• Projects must focus on a single concept or third-party property. This essentially expands on the “no playthemes or series” rule and also rules out “mass customization” projects (e.g. custom mosaic or minifigure makers) as well as combining more than one third-party property into a single project. (e.g. a project containing both Porsche and Ferrari cars).
• It’s now simpler to collaborate on projects. We’ve removed the requirement to email us declaring your collaboration. You must still receive explicit permission from someone else before including their original work in your project. All new collaborative projects must mention collaborators’ LEGO Ideas usernames in the description, and state that their original work is included with the member’s explicit permission.
• New restrictions on project contents
  • No iconic elements referencing third-party properties we find inappropriate for the LEGO brand
  • No large or human-scale weapons or weapon replicas of any kind, including swords, knives, guns, sci-fi or fantasy blasters, etc.
  • Projects may not propose LEGO Dimensions expansion packs
  • You may only use logos that belong to third-parties in the context of your model, similar to LEGO logo guidelines. You may not display logos that do not belong to you in your artwork, since this can imply endorsement from the logo owner.
• New guidelines to help improve project descriptions
  • At minimum, please write your description to include a description of your model, why you built it, and why you believe it would make a great LEGO set.
  • In some cases, moderators may make basic grammatical changes on your behalf so we can speed up the approval of your project. We will never change the nature of your project and we’ll notify you by email if we make any changes.
• Terms of Service now preserves projects that gain a significant following. While we understand you may occasionally want to delete a project with only a handful of supporters, to either re-submit with improvements or clean up your project portfolio, once a project reaches 1,000 supporters it will not be removed.
• Terms of Service revises language regarding assignment of rights. We’ve worked with our Legal department to clarify how you assign us rights when you submit a project, and reassure you that you may share and publish your submission to promote your project online, in media, your portfolio, and other places for non-commercial purposes.

We introduce these guidelines with the following steps:

1. New Guidelines and moderation responses
2. Archiving projects based on third-party properties commercialized through LEGO Ideas, including Hayabusa, Minecraft, Back to the Future, Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover, Ghostbusters, The Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who, WALL·E, Caterham, Adventure Time, Beatles, and Apollo missions.
3. Removing projects that don’t fit our new appropriate content requirements such as life-sized weapons or references to inappropriate third-party properties
4. Other guidelines will be applied going forward and not retroactively

Why these updates now?

We write our Guidelines to help you submit projects that have a reasonable chance of being selected as a product in our LEGO Review. The paradox is that we can only learn what is possible to produce through LEGO Ideas by evaluating a wide range of projects and identifying project attributes that fit our capabilities over time.

You’ve also shared opinions and suggestions about how to make LEGO Ideas an even better experience. We feel fortunate to have a passionate community that strives for this as much as we do. While we can’t accommodate every wish, your collective feedback has been incredibly valuable in making these changes to improving LEGO Ideas for as many as possible.

Throughout the rest of 2016 and beyond, our team is working to improve the way we engage on the platform and social media, improving our internal LEGO Review process, and working on the overall long-term growth of the LEGO Ideas experience.

Update and Ideas Logo curtsey of LEGO Ideas website.