The banality of evil, Lego edition
-
This is a fun situation playing out on social media. Some dying old guy's son put the old guy's huge Lego collection up for sale, through consignment at a Lego reseller called Bricks and Minifigs. BaM is a national bricks-and-mortar franchise dedicated to buying and selling Legos and similar things.
The story goes that BaM corporate took that particular franchise over, due to lack of payment from the franchisees. While the franchise was still in possession of the consigned Lego collection. The seller asked for his Legos back, but the new franchisees claim they don't have it, and that there's no record of the consignment, and that consignments were prohibited by the franchisee's contract. The ex-franchisee who was foreclosed upon has produced their contract which does allow for consignment.
A big youtuber got on the case and started making videos about his attempt to get the legos back, and BaM, along with the new franchisees, are going nuclear in their attempt to kill the situation with lawyers. As is apparently their pattern, historically. While BaM attempts public-facing damage control with its CEO and COO making podcast appearances where they dig their hole deeper.
The youtuber in question has been swatted by local police, harassed, arrested over nothing, and intimidated in various ways as the local cops apparently collude with BaM and the new franchisee. Even the local police chief has gone on social media to try to justify their actions. (More hole digging there, too.)
BaM lawyers reached out to Patreon with a request to get the youtuber's account taken down. Patreon is this guy's only source of income. The Patreon CEO released this in response:
Link to videoThat's quite a coup for Patreon to side with creators over litigious corporations whining about copyright or whatever. Patreon is 10x bigger than BaM, so it's fun watching the legal nuclear option get used against BaM.
I'm hoping Kash can get on this case. Seems like something this administration might enjoy. If it's as cartoonishly one-sided as it appears, it would make for a good narrative for this FBI.
-
The whole social media ecosystem is on this. So much fun. The nuclear option legal strategy of BaM absolutely works, and they have an established pattern of using it. But it won't be working now that the world is watching.
Here's a lawyer commenting on the Patrion CEO video, and the attempt by BaM to strong arm him into taking down Reckless Ben's account. (RB is the youtuber who initiated the public exposure after the owner of the legos contacted him to help.)
Link to video- The restraining order on Reckless Ben, filed by BaM, is not in effect, since it has not yet been served.
- Patreon (and youtube, which I'm sure got the same strong arm) is not named in the order, and has no obligation to do anything pursuant to it, even if it had been served.
- The judge who granted the order ruled that no meaningful damages would accrue to the target of the order. That's how the judge granted it while Ben was not in the room to argue his side. The judge literally claims that depriving Ben of his only source of income would result in no meaningful damages to him.
BaM's cronies in the local government continue to step on themselves. It is pretty fascinating to watch these sorts of things that presumably go on frequently, but which don't usually get any public scrutiny.
-
They're not an unsecured creditor from any side's legal perspective. According to the consignment agreement, the store never owned the legos.
The situation does beggar belief, but so far I've seen no reason to believe it's substantially more ambiguous than the current social media narrative indicates. BaM has had lots and lots of opportunity to explain their side, and they have failed to do so, even as they've tried, in long form interviews with the CEO and COO. In those contexts, they attempt to come off as gracious and decent, but they never explain themselves adequately. And behind the scenes, they are pulling out the stops to get this squished any way they can, via local law enforcement and lawfare.
-
It's actually blatantly obvious that it's all ego-driven at this point. The leaders of BaM have litigation in their blood and they have used it successfully over and over to solve their problems. There's even a recording of a conversation between the Lego owners and a top executive at BaM where the BaM guy explicitly threatens them that the legal process will bury them financially, so they should back off. That's the sort of thing that has the online world piling up against them. They developed an ego and a tough guy persona based on this successful problem solving strategy, but they never tried it while the world is watching. Now they are really screwed.
-
Is this an example of Sayre’s Law at play?
-
Is this an example of Sayre’s Law at play?
Is this an example of Sayre’s Law at play?
Exactly what I was thinking. But I didn't know it was called Sayre's Law. I only knew the aphorism about academic disputes.
On the other hand, the amounts of money involved are anything but trivial, and they continue to ramp up, now that each side is suing the other. The losing side here might end up losing millions. On paper at least. The youtube guy would presumably declare bankruptcy.
-
-
I wasn't aware of Sayre's Law but it certainly seems to apply here. I wonder what the value of the collection might be. Should be enough history to get a reasonable approximation.
This does seem to be a clash of egos. BaM took a hardass position, probably out of laziness, and now won't back down. I suspect they could have ended it more constructively by paying the family rather than the lawyers.
-
The collection is valued in the low six figures.
This morning's installment from Ben (the youtuber) is leaked audio from the local police body cams, which the department had redacted previously. It shows the new franchisee who allegedly stole the legos talking to cops and weaving impossible to believe fantasies about the youtuber threatening to murder everybody in the store. Trying to get someone arrested with invented threats can't possibly be legal.
After the cop discovers that the papers are real and the process server is real (contrary to the franchisee's claim they are "a trillion percent fake"), the cop does nothing with that information and says that he'll comb the statutes to find a reason to arrest him anyway.
Link to video -
Bricks and Minifigs corporate has capitulated. The franchise at the center of this has been forcibly shut down and all business ties with its owners have been severed. BaM corporate is offering whatever Star Wars legos are in the store to the guy who consigned his collection there, whether there is proof they are his or not.
Their side is explained in two separate blog posts yesterday.
https://bricksandminifigs.com/blog/Seems likely based on how they worded all that, that they are going to continue to go after the youtuber. That'll keep this interesting.
-
Nate the Lawyer gets into the possible police corruption:
Link to video
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login