Leaked / Bootlegged Content Rules and Guidelines

[Mesonak]

Updated Leak Policy: April 15, 2021

• The TTV Channel will no longer report on, discuss, or post leaked images that contain confidential markings
• Posting or linking to leaked images with confidential markings on the TTV Message Boards or our comments sections on YouTube is no longer permitted, and will result in an immediate and permanent account and IP Ban. Distribution via private message, if caught, will result in the same punishment.
• Discussion of leaked content, however, WILL continue to be allowed on both the TTV Message Boards and our comments section on YouTube.
• Set names released via reputable sources, such as online shop sites, will be reported on, discussed, and allowed to be posted
• Images without confidential markings will also be reported on, discussed, and allowed to be posted.
• Impressions from retailer catalogs will not be reported on or discussed on the TTV Channel, but is acceptable to be discussed on the TTV Message Boards or our comments sections.
• Images of pieces and/or minifigures taken from official factories are NOT allowed to be posted.
• Other assorted leaked information such as internal documentation, story details, or anything else will be handled on a case-by-case basis
• Any of this is subject to change pending a direct request from LEGO or their IP holders

ADDITIONALLY, intentionally posting false information of any kind will result in a permanent IP-ban from our channel and our YouTube channel if caught. We’re returning to the old way of discussion, though; you can feel free to discuss whatever content you want, verified or not. Just be aware that we will be watching and will be very vocal about our opinions on their possible legitimacy.

-Mesonak

---

Amendment I: Cropped Leak images are not allowed.

It kinda goes without saying, but it should be clarified nonetheless. Any picture that features a part of a confidential image from Lego will be removed, and the poster suspended, regardless of whether the confidential logo is shown.

It’s also worth noting that this means that images featuring comparisons between leaks and the finished sets are not allowed. However, we encourage you to discuss the differences between them, just with words and not pictures.

---

Amendment II: The Leak Policy extends to full length footage of BIONICLE or LEGO related footage not intended for non-profit release.

This means any productions made by The LEGO Group for the purpose of promotion or story progression that is not readily available to the public for free, including but not limited to:

BIONICLE: The Journey to One, BIONICLE: Mask of Light, BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui, BIONICLE 3: Web of Shadows, BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn, The LEGO Movie, any episodes of the Ninjago TV Series, any episodes of the Nexo Knights TV Series, and any episodes of the Hero Factory TV Series

What you are not allowed to do:

• Publicly embed footage, at any length that extends past five minutes,
  of any productions listed above that have not been posted publicly by
  The LEGO Group in an official capacity.

• Directly link to footage, that extends past five minutes, of any productions listed above that have not been posted publicly by The LEGO Group in an official capacity.

• Full length footage cut down into separate five minute increments still
  classifies as full length footage and is not allowed

What you are allowed to do

• Post screen caps and still images of these productions provided you
  use a spoiler tag for plot specific images (as a courtesy to other
  members) within 3 months after the production’s release and adhere to
  our Post Content guidelines.

• Directly embed videos that utilizes footage in a means to make
  commentary, critique, or review, provided it adheres to our
  Promotions and Advertising guidelines.

• Directly embed videos that utilizes footage in a means to make
  commentary, critique, or review, provided it adheres to our
  Promotions and Advertising guidelines.

• Link to or embed footage or animated GIF, that is under five minutes
  in length, for the sake of discussion, such as a particular moment,
  fight scene, or animation you deemed worthy of discussing.

I’m not going to preach to you about morality, quite frankly I don’t care what you do in your free time. We at TTV have had our own run with piracy in the past, whether you consider this wrong or not is for you to decide.

What is important, however, is that this is illegal in most countries.

We understand that some of LEGO’s productions might not be the most accessible, especially for different countries, and as fans it’s important for us to ingest any amount of new media we can; however in an effort to keep this website within good standing we are henceforth outlawing any content we deem as illegally obtained, recreated, or bootlegged for the sake of distributing LEGO’s productions outside of official means.

Posting this type of content on the public message boards will result in a week suspension, and repeat offenders will face a permanent ban.

[Eljay]

@Booster_Gold2

Does this apply to discussion of leaks that have already come out and haven’t been proven false, or just to ones hat come up after this rule? I.E the ghost villain/4chan stuff?

If it hasn’t been on the channel or on the podcast, it isn’t allowed here.

[Mesonak]

@Adazai

What about non-Bionicle leaks?

Same process, minus the news video; just flag us in the direction of a “leak” and we’ll take a look at it and give approval/disapproval. As of current, anything that’s come from Just2Good and/or Amazon is fair game to talk about.

Admittedly, though, this rule is mainly geared towards BIONICLE discussion; moderating general Lego content will be harder (plus, there aren’t as many fake leaks for general Lego). That being said, we’re going to operate under the same rules for the time being and we’ll see how it goes.

-Mesonak

[Kahi]

@Ekorak

But what of Nexo Knights? It’s a confirmed thing though Amazon.

Nexo Knights is completely okay to talk about, since it has been confirmed through a source. Any alternate leaks about Nexo Knights, however, should be directed to us first. We’ll confirm or deny leaks as best we can.

[Kahi]

@LQ1998

I myself enjoy seeing all the fake leaks and ripping apart what’s wrong with them.

I do too. I find fake leaks kind of hilarious, personally. They’re like forgeries - and I’ve yet to see a really well done one that wasn’t fake at first glance. That being said, too many people have been falling prey to them to make them worthwhile. They don’t really add anything here, and they’re clogging up the boards with some (quite honestly) gullible people. Sorry! It’s the truth.

[Kiixaar]

I like this rule but I have one question:

Suppose someone wanted to do a joke leak, and made it obvious that the “leak” was not meant to be taken seriously. Such as: “Totally Legit 100% True Mata Nui Confirmed For Bionicle 2017 Leak!” or rather something more outrageous like: “Bionicle 2020 set list leaked!” which would detail a bunch of obviously false sets meant as something akin to an April Fools joke.

To be honest, I’ve been on the fence as to whether or not to make a joke leak topic (such as posting blurry photos of MOCs with skull spider masks on them). I agree with the new rule and will respect the community as always, but I also wish to know how much I should curb my humor so as to not accidentally get flagged or banned.

[Kahi]

I don’t find the use in making obviously fake leaks.

For me (and only me, considering the argument we’ve had on it in call), fake leaks are like forgeries. The only reason you should consider doing a forgery is to stretch your skillmanship. If people take it as legal tender, then you’ve achieved your goal in making things look real. Most of the guys in TTV don’t think that’s a legitimate excuse for doing it anyway.

Obviously fake leaks don’t even serve that purpose. So, long story short, no, you can’t make a fake joke leak.

[Mesonak]

@Scarilian

Also, does this spread into all sorts of leaks? or just set leaks? Given we’ve had multiple other leaks about things in the past that appeared only on the boards such as the book previews, a confidential document about okoto and a few other things. I recently relayed some Star Wars leaks from the catalogue that isn’t out for another week or so, would that also fall under things that now need to be relayed?

Correct, this applies to every Lego-related leak, as story information and/or info for other themes can be fabricated just as easily as BIONICLE info. The difference between them, however, is that we likely wouldn’t make a video covering any System-related news. As such, just send any questionable info our way and we’ll make the final call on it here on the MB.

I’m going to amend the topic to be more clear in that regard.

-Mesonak

[Eljay]

http://board.ttvpodcast.com/t/behavioral-rules/94/3

That should answer any questions regarding fake leaks.

[Mesonak]

@Maethorneth

Like I said, I can see both sides, I just don’t like it. With this, we’ve established a precedent that new rules can be made because of a single incident. Now because of one case, everyone else has to be limited.

Correct; this isn’t the first time we’ve amended the rules because of an isolated incident, and to be perfectly honest with you, it probably won’t be the last. To be completely fair, it’s not like this rule was put in place after one dude faked a leak. This is about the sixth or seventh fake “leak” that has been popularized in the community this “leak season,” and it’s completely ridiculous. All it does is waste the community’s time; we felt that it was in our power to put some checks and balances in place, so we did.

As much as I’d love to tell you that the rules will remain the same forever, it’d be foolish of me to promise such a thing as I can’t predict the future. So in the interest of full transparency, we do reserve the right to alter any of our rules at any time for any reason whatsoever.

-Mesonak

[Kahi]

@Takua

TTV is slowly becoming a Totalitarian message board.

“Becoming”? What’s this “becoming” nonsense?

@Maethorneth

Like I said, I can see both sides, I just don’t like it. With this, we’ve established a precedent that new rules can be made because of a single incident. Now because of one case, everyone else has to be limited.

Listen: I’ll give it to you from our perspective.

We pride ourselves on being reliable when it comes to leaks. Now, that doesn’t mean that we’ll always be 100% correct, but we do have a good track record and try to verify proof for all the leaks we come across. As of yet, we have yet to report on a leak that was not legit.

This year, there was a ton of fake leaks. And I mean an actual ton. Seriously, from “Ghost” to “Taka: Master of Light” to set lists - it was insane! There were too many! And now we have a thing where, as the only message board that allowed discussion of leaks, we had members going out and saying they were true, and then inviting people back onto our boards to talk about them.

We wrote off all of those fake leaks from when we saw them, and just didn’t report on them. But now we have a thing where many gullible members of our community, and other communities, were picking up on these things and going around and kind of making this, our own community, a place where fake leaks could spread and fester.

That’s not us. That’s not our reputation. And we don’t want it to be.

We could have just made talking about leaks illegal, like a bunch of other LEGO sites, but I honestly do see their merit at times. They’re publicity, they’re something to discuss, they’re interesting and they spark discussion for the void several month period where there’s no Bionicle content coming out. I get that. And people like to speculate and we like to speculate. We didn’t want to ruin that for people here.

But we also couldn’t let just any fake leak go out there. So we came up with a compromise. Discussion around fake leaks literally go nowhere, but we don’t report on every leak we see - we just report on the ones we think are real. So if we narrowed it down to just the leaks we report on, we can continue having discussion without subjecting the other gullible people in our community to running around in circles around a poorly photoshopped picture.

All that is to say that we made this rule and thought it was the best compromise going forward, one that kept our reputation without sacrificing everything. That being said, you’re right - we did this as a response to something we saw get out of hand. This is how many of the other rules from this point on will be made. That’s how government’s basically work. We will be putting restrictions and more rules to curb things as time goes on - because we can’t possibly predict everything that will get out of hand.

Sorry, but that’s literally the only way we can do that. The rules are a fluid thing here, the same way the design and look and feel of the boards constantly evolve. We have to adjust them as time goes on, else we just become stagnant.

[Mesonak]

@Maethorneth

Also @Mesonak , isn’t it the community’s decision whether they waste their time? Don’t get me wrong, I agree, it’s just the way you worded that statement made it seem more “control-freak” than actually trying to be helpful =P

Well, it’s certainly not my intention to come across as a “control-freak.” or overbearing in any way. You do have to keep in mind, though, that we’re members of the community as well; we just so happen to be in a position to influence a branch of it. Additionally, we manage these boards and we have quality standards to keep, both for ourselves and also the quality of discussion that we feature. Thousands of posts regarding obviously fake leaks doesn’t do anything for the community, it doesn’t do anything for us as fans, and it most definitely doesn’t do anything for our board’s reputation. I know you’re not advocating fake leaks, but my perspective is that if we have the ability to stem the flow of nonsense, we should do whatever is within our power to achieve that end.

-Mesonak

[GK733]

What kind of leaks don’t need to be verified?
I get that if you send just a picture it can be taken as fake but what about linking to a store site where those pictures do exist for example?

[Mesonak]

Store sites with pictures are automatically allowed because those can’t really be faked.

-Mesonak

[Mesonak]

PSA: Updated Leak Policy on 12/24/15 to reflect the changes outlined in [this video][1]. Feel free to discuss the changes in more detail [over here.][2]

-Mesonak
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FHe522XIRk&lc=z125jnph0qyzgjbqr04cffdinrbqh55anpo0k
[2]: HugeDomains.com

[Political_Slime]

Amendment I: Cropped Leak images are not allowed.

It kinda goes without saying, but it should be clarified nonetheless. Any picture that features a part of a confidential image from Lego will be removed, and the poster suspended, regardless of whether the confidential logo is shown.

It’s also worth noting that this means that images featuring comparisons between leaks and the finished sets are not allowed. However, we encourage you to discuss the differences between them, just with words and not pictures.

so if you could follow those rules that’d be dank tnx

[IllustriousVar]

Amendment II: The Leak Policy extends to full length footage of BIONICLE or LEGO related footage not intended for non-profit release.

This means any productions made by The LEGO Group for the purpose of promotion or story progression that is not readily available to the public for free, including but not limited to:

BIONICLE: The Journey to One, BIONICLE: Mask of Light, BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui, BIONICLE 3: Web of Shadows, BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn, The LEGO Movie, any episodes of the Ninjago TV Series, any episodes of the Nexo Knights TV Series, and any episodes of the Hero Factory TV Series

What you are not allowed to do:

• Publicly embed footage, at any length that extends past five minutes, of any productions listed above that have not been posted publicly by The LEGO Group in an official capacity.

• Directly link to footage, that extends past five minutes, of any productions listed above that have not been posted publicly by The LEGO Group in an official capacity.

• Full length footage cut down into separate five minute increments still
  classifies as full length footage and is not allowed

What you are allowed to do

• Post screen caps and still images of these productions provided you
  use a spoiler tag for plot specific images (as a courtesy to other
  members) within 3 months after the production’s release and adhere to
  our Post Content guidelines.

• Publicly embed videos that utilizes footage in a means to make
  commentary, critique, or review, provided it adheres to our
  Promotions and Advertising guidelines.

• Directly link to videos that utilizes footage in a means to make
  commentary, critique, or review, provided it adheres to our
  Promotions and Advertising guidelines.

• Link to or embed footage or animated GIF, that is under five minutes
  in length, for the sake of discussion, such as a particular moment,
  fight scene, or animation you deemed worthy of discussing.

I’m not going to preach to you about morality, quite frankly I don’t care what you do in your free time. We at TTV have had our own run with piracy in the past, whether you consider this wrong or not is for you to decide.

What is important, however, is that this is illegal in most countries.

We understand that some of LEGO’s productions might not be the most accessible, especially for different countries, and as fans it’s important for us to ingest any amount of new media we can; however in an effort to keep this website within good standing we are henceforth outlawing any content we deem as illegally obtained, recreated, or bootlegged for the sake of distributing LEGO’s productions outside of official means.

Posting this type of content on the public message boards will result in a week suspension, and repeat offenders will face a permanent ban.

[Rockho]

@IllustriousVar

Directly embed videos that utilizes footage in a means to make commentary, critique, or review, provided it adheres to our Promotions and Advertising guidelines.

Directly embed videos that utilizes footage in a means to make commentary, critique, or review, provided it adheres to our Promotions and Advertising guidelines.

You might want to edit that…

[Square]

Are we allowed to post fake leak as Artwork / “Joke”?

I feel like making a fake sets or edited and posting them here with the confidential watermark.

[Eljay]

There has been an update to our Leak Policy, we advise all members to read it and familiarize yourselves with the new additions and the policy in general.