I know there is a Lepin set for the LUT which I bought a few weeks back for $160~. Despite being massive IP thieves they do make decent enough bricks, the QC certainly isn't on par with Lego and I've had a few (1's out of 1000's) being a bit loose or mis-moulded but I'll happily buy sets from them for non Lego designs and track down the designs and pay the author for the instructions separately if available.

It’s one thing to make something compatible with Lego, that’s perfectly legitimate. It’s another thing to make unlicensed Star Wars sets. My heart does not bleed for Disney’s shareholders, not one iota.

But I’m troubled by anything that looks like it’s set up to fool buyers into thinking that they’re getting a genuine Lego product. The Lepin logo crosses that line for me, their sets do not.

Maybe they'll eventually go the way the vast majority of knockoff ATMega328 Arduino makers did; at first, many copied everything down to the logo (first with the Duemilanove, then the Uno - prior versions weren't copied afaik), colors, everything. Most of the time poorly. A few did as the license allowed - copied everything except for the name and some other key things. Those were legit knockoffs.

Some eventually started changing up the colors, adding features, coming up with their own branding and names; eventually some moved into making their own "custom boards" that had no connection with the Arduino other than being compatible. Most would (and still do) advertise as being "Arduino" or "Arduino-compatible", or they use some variant of "-duino" in their name (which actually makes no sense once you learn where the name came from - and originally Massimo and the others implored people not to use such naming - but that didn't last)...

Today, there are few actual counterfeiters of the boards - but knockoffs are a-plenty. And the nice thing is, the companies that "knockoff" the designs actually keep some of the discontinued models still going. With the org now moving toward 32-bit microcontrollers and moving away from the old 8-bit ATMega line, those manufacturers may be the only way in the future of getting these lower-cost boards which still can satisfy most use-cases, which 32-bit based boards would be overkill for (short of just buying the raw 328 controller and custom-building your own compatible).

So maybe today Lepin is crossing the line - but maybe over time they'll move to their own - but still compatible - system (to be honest, based on what I've seen on Amazon with some of the more "technical" STEM kits they and other manufacturers are making, that's the direction they seem to be moving in).

I have also bought sets related to the Alien(s) and Blade Runner movies, sets that simply weren’t available in a licensed fashion at all. I obviously have zero problem with that.

Just about the only thing that gives me pause is that I prefer when they knock off the subject but resell genuine bricks. That way, if I tire of the model, the pieces go into the family lego bins.

I’m not ready to “cross the streams” and mix Lego blocks with knockoff blocks.

I generally have no problem with this, as it allows certain types of kits to exist that Lego wouldn’t otherwise make. It’s no longer my bag, but for example Lego generally avoid military models, but third-party Lego-compatible sets fill the void.

On the other hand, Lego are—to my knowledge—the only brick manufacturer licensed to produce Star Wars kits, and this company is advertising a Tie Bomber.

Lego doesn’t currently make such a kit, but you can’t go around selling Star Wars kits without having a certain flair for playing very fast and loose with IP. Which leads me to want to double-check before placing any order for any kit.

I’m not saying that other bricks are bad, but I do want to know exactly what I’m buying before making a decision.