IANAL; this is not legal advice. My instinct is yes lego models would attract copyright protection, but copyright applies to works that have a distinctive qual

IANAL; this is not legal advice. My instinct is yes lego models would attract copyright protection, but copyright applies to works that have a distinctive quality to them. If you make a generic house, no copyright. Also, people only infringe if they copy, just creating the same lego model isn't enough and courts are likely to need extraordinary proof to sway the 'balance of probabilities' towards the work being a copy. Yes, instructions can be reproduced as they are factual and not artistic, but you can't necessarily copy the way the instructions are presented (eg images are likely to be protected by copyright, but an image of a single brick wouldn't pass the distinctiveness threshold; and also probably wouldn't be copied). You'd need to make it explicitly clear if you didn't have trademark approval from Lego that your lego models were not originated by them (if your images show their bricks or use the word "lego"). In the UK, Design Rights might be more relevant, but I know very little about them. In other countries Utility Patents might also have relevance. If your designs are functional then the functional elements won't accrue copyright/design rights. In UK you'd probably be limited to actual damages for infringements (people copying your lego model), ~£0. I consider lego to be genericised, but courts would probably disagree. This post represents my private, personal opinion and in no way relates to my employment.