Goodbye Bratz Dolls

[Lyric]

Barbie beats back Bratz
Federal judge bars MGA from making, selling Bratz dolls.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The rowdy Bratz dolls have been evicted. Barbie has regained control of the dollhouse.

Toy giant Mattel Inc., after a four-year legal dispute with MGA Entertainment Inc., touted its win in the case Wednesday after a federal judge banned MGA from making and selling its pouty-lipped and hugely popular Bratz dolls.

"It's a pretty sweeping victory," Mattel attorney Michael Zeller said. "They have no right to use Bratz for any goods or services at all."

U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson rocked the toy industry with his order that MGA must immediately stop manufacturing Bratz. He allowed MGA to wait until the holiday season ends to remove the toys from store shelves.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/04/news/companies/bratz_dolls.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008120406

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Wow. My friend Susan has two little girls who LOVE those things. I bet they're gonna be heartbroken. At least they're waiting until after Christmas is over to stop making them.

[yasmina27]

1. Good!

Sorry, I hated them - thought they were the ugliest things out there. Fortunately, my daughters only liked them for about 2 years.


Sorry about your friend's daughters though. Maybe she could stock up on them now, and use them for presents in the future.

[Lyric]

2. Yep, I'd imagine that a lot of parents are going to do so

when the news of this starts hitting more widely.

Makes me glad my kid is a boy who doesn't like dolls.

[supernova]

3. This is good news

Bratz are well, bratty. :crazy:

Barbie, as many issues as I have with her, is at least well-behaved.

[NewJeffCT]

4. damn - I guess GirlNewJeffCT ain't getting any Bratz dolls this year

Not that I had planned on getting them for her, but she did have one or two Bratz items on her lengthy Christmas list.

[MorningGlow]

5. Woo hoo!

:woohoo:

I don't have a dog in this fight, as I have a boy who's only interested in cars and trucks, but damn, we're all so SICK of the Bratz commercials on the kids' channels we could just :puke: Especially the one that starts "BRAAAAATZ" (even that's sung in a snotty way). Now the whole family does it--when the commercial comes on (or even if there's a different reference to those freakish playthings) one of us will shout "BRAAAATZ" and the rest of the family will echo it like a moose mating call from wherever they happen to be in the house.

Here's the evil commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPxNx-n0uB0

[DS1]

6. Isaac Larian and his son are both fucking assholes

I know from experience. And wow, talk about taking all the money. 696 million out of 778 million goes to one guy. Outrageous.

[SOteric]

7. Is this going to affect

your company's work on their stoopid stuff?

[DS1]

8. I hope so

I could use the extra hardware

[Blue Diadem]

9. So how long before Mattel begins selling them?

Since the ruling says the designer developed the concept while working for Mattel and they've been awarded $$ for copyright infringement and breach of contract, I'm betting it won't be long until Mattel puts their name on them.

[Dora]

17. Exactly right.

Mattel probably has their own Bratz product ready to ship, now.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

10. I always thought they were called Whorz. nt

[foxfeet]

22. Or Slutz. nt

[Mad_Dem_X]

11. Yesh! Barbie rules!

Screw those Bratz dolls, with their giant heads and slutty clothes. Good riddance!

Barbie 4-evah!

[Shell Beau]

12. Barbie will never go out of style. She has been around forever.

Other dolls will come and go, but Barbie kicks ass!!!! :P

[onlyadream]

13. I always hated Barbie!!!

And if you put a Bratt doll in the ring with Barbie, she'd kick Barbie's teeny tiny ass!

[Shell Beau]

14. With her gargantuanly oversized head, eyes and mouth!!

[onlyadream]

19. Don't like Bratz either.

Bratz came WAY after MY time. I actually LOVED the Sunshine Family. My daughter had a bunch of Bratz dolls, but she never really played with them.

[redqueen]

15. Good riddance to that oversexualized shite.

I hated those fucking things and can't imagine why any woman wouldn't tell her daughter exactly why they're fucked up as all hell.

[surrealAmerican]

16. While I don't like the dolls (they are the very definition of tacky), ...

... I don't like this ruling either. It basically says that a designer's ideas are not her own, but belong to the company she works for.

"The ruling, issued in federal court in Riverside, followed a jury's finding that Bratz designer Carter Bryant developed the concept for the dolls while working for Mattel."

[guitar man]

18. people need to stop signing those agreements

I don't know if that was the case here since I haven't had time to research it, but oftentimes designers etc will sign an agreement that anything they develop during their period of employment belongs to their employer. Now I can understand if they develop something on company time using company resources where the employer could make that claim. But if they are going home to their own workshop and doing it on their own time, that's another matter. But if the employee signed a non-compete clause or other document, they may set themselves up for such an outcome as we see here.

[Shakespeare]

20. Anything a designer creates while under the employ of a company, belongs to that company.

It's what they pay her for (and quite different from the contractual nature of, say, a musician and record company). I have no problem with the law on that one. The ruling itself isn't really precedent setting--the nature (and size) of the case made it sensational, but the court (and jury) mostly had to decide just how the designer's contract with Mattel applied.

It was a fairly straightforward case--it just happens to involve jaw-dropping amounts of money, and one very popular line of toys.

[Capn Sunshine]

21. 'twas ever thus

back in the day designers/engineers worked for one company until retirement; it was expected that anything they did belonged to the company.

Now that it's every person for themselves, you have to be seriously careful if you come up with something. I have a couple of clients right now who invented some marvelous gene splicing technique or something but it's worth billions according to them and they are literally living off crackers and top ramen for two years until their former Big Pharma corporate property laws no longer apply and they can continue on their own.

I'll bet there's a lot of people doing this.

[Dulcinea]

23. I hate Bratz.

My sister got my daughter a Bratz doll for her birthday. It looks like a space alien. I call it "Area 51." My daughter calls it "Area" for short.

("You left Area 51 in the middle of the floor! Get Area 51 off the couch!")

When she gets sick of it, I'll sell it on eBay!

[mitchum]

24. But who will Billy from "Family Circus" masturbate to now?

[nytemare]

26. ROFL!

[Symarip]

25. ANOTHER FESTIVUS MIRACLE

Two in one day. Wow.