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BrickLink

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BrickLink
FormerlyBrickBay
Company typePrivate
IndustryE-commerce, internet forum
Founded19 June 2000
FounderDan Jezek
FateAcquired by The Lego Group
Headquarters
Irvine, California
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
ProductsLego parts
Number of employees
< 30
ParentThe Lego Group
Websitewww.bricklink.com

BrickLink is the largest online marketplace for reselling Lego products. Its website also offers resources for Lego fans, including an extensive catalog of products and parts and community forums.[1]

History

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BrickLink was founded by Dan Jezek, who had made it after other online sellers were impressed by the website he made for his own Lego store. Originally named BrickBay, the site started operation on June 19, 2000. After online retailer eBay challenged the use of "Bay" in the name, it was renamed BrickLink in 2002.[2]

In 2010, Jezek died suddenly,[3] and his mother Eliska Jezkova succeeded him as CEO. In 2013, the site was acquired by Nexon founder and CEO Jung-Ju "Jay" Kim, who transferred its assets into BrickLink Limited, a Hong Kong-based company.[4] Kim, a Lego fan himself, created some of the most important features of the current BrickLink website, including the BrickLink AFOL Designer Program (now the BrickLink Designer Program) which sold top-rated fan designs as packaged, unofficial sets, and the BrickLink Studio digital design software.

On November 26, 2019, The Lego Group acquired BrickLink Ltd. for an undisclosed amount.[5][6][7]

Other projects

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Studio

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Studio (initially Stud.io) is a freeware computer program for creating virtual 3D models with Lego bricks. It was released on BrickLink as an open beta on December 13, 2016.[8] The next major update to the program, version 2.0, was released in open beta on July 18, 2018. Multiple features were added to the program, including a photorealistic rendering option, BrickLink integration for ordering parts to recreate the model physically and an instruction manual generator.

Initially, Studio for their own parts library silently used LDraw Parts Library, developed by LDraw.org Community under Creative Commons Attribution license. After LDraw.org's admin contacted with the Studio developers the info about use of LDraw has been publicly added to the website and into software.[9][10]

The https://Stud.io has been historically bad with attribution of their sources. LDraw had to contact them directly to get them to acknowledge use in their about page and most average users still don't know that the Stud.io's library is back by LDraw

— Orion Pobursky, The LDraw.org Admin, https://twitter.com/billtfish/status/1636435679076057089

In 2021, it was revealed that the Eyesight, a render engine of the BrickLink Studio, is built from the Cycles render sources developed by Blender Foundation (at the time, Cycles' source has been already under Apache License, allowing it to be included into proprietary software, while Blender's source stays under GPL), but in same time BrickLink Studio proprietary binary included some GPL-licensed source from Blender too, at least parts of bf_blenlib source files,[11] that is visibe in Studio binary file via hex editor. 

Error! Could not get the Windows Directory - Defaulting to Blender installation Dir! ,
Error! Could not get the Windows Directory - Defaulting to first valid drive! Path might be invalid! and BLI_dynstr_append text too long or format error.

Later, the source of Eyesight was released on BrickLink site, as well as the modified sources of POV-Ray, FFmpeg and other sotware libs used in Studio.[10][12][13]

In January 2022, The Lego Group announced that BrickLink Studio would replace the Lego Digital Designer (LDD) software as the official virtual Lego building software going forward.[14]

Part Designer

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Part Designer is a freeware computer program for creating virtual 3D models of the Lego bricks and custom bricks as parts to be used in the Studio software. It is supporting various file formats, including LDraw File Format, STL and other.

AFOL Designer Program

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In 2018, to celebrate 60 years since the modern Lego interlocking brick design was created and patented, BrickLink teamed up with The Lego Group to create the AFOL Designer Program. It allowed users to upload their own Lego set designs into a competition. The winning designs had the opportunity to be crowdfunded and, if successful, sold on the BrickLink marketplace.[15] It has similarities with Lego Ideas where the designs that get more than 10.000 likes get accepted to finals and the winning one becomes an official Lego set.

References

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  1. ^ Nightingale, Laura (30 January 2021). "The Amazing Lego Trading Website to Buy and Sell Parts and Sets". GetSurrey.co.uk. Retrieved 2024-07-21.
  2. ^ Wingfield, Nick (20 February 2002). "EBay Settles Site Name Disputes With BidBay.com, BrickBay.com". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
  3. ^ "Bricklink Founder Daniel Jezek Has Passed Away [News]". The Brothers Brick. 27 October 2010. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
  4. ^ "Nexon Chairman Acquires Bricklink". The Korea IT Times. Seoul, Korea. 10 June 2013. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
  5. ^ Wood, Zoe (20 December 2019). "Lego Accused of Muscling in on Fans After BrickLink Takeover". The Guardian. Retrieved 2024-07-21.
  6. ^ "The Guardian View on Lego for Adults: Play Is a Serious Business". The Guardian. 17 January 2020. Retrieved 2024-07-21.
  7. ^ "Nexon Founder Sells BrickLink to LEGO in Streamlining Move After Botched Gaming Deal". Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea. 28 November 2019. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
  8. ^ "BrickLink - Stud.io (Archived)". 5 January 2017. Archived from the original on 2017-01-05. Retrieved 2019-02-26.
  9. ^ Pobursky, Orion. "Tweet by @billtfish". Twitter. The Stud.io has been historically bad with attribution of their sources. LDraw had to contact them directly to get them to acknowledge use in their about page and most average users still don't know that the Stud.io's library is back by LDraw{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ^ a b "Technical Notes". BrickLink Help Center. LEGO Group. Retrieved 2024-10-10. BrickLink uses: Vignette renders created using LDraw, MLCad, L3PAdd-on and Pov-Ray
  11. ^ "On what version of Cycles is Bricklink Stud.io's Eyesight renderer based?". Developer Forum. 2021-02-13. Retrieved 2024-10-10.
  12. ^ "BrickLink Studio's Eyesight, native on Linux". slswww.free.fr. Retrieved 2024-10-10.
  13. ^ "Studio Download". BrickLink. This software uses code of FFmpeg licensed under the LGPLv2.1 and its source can be downloaded here.
  14. ^ "BrickLink Studio Replacing LDD". BrickSet. 12 January 2022. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
  15. ^ "AFOL Designer Program [BrickLink]". Bricklink.com. Retrieved 2024-04-17.
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