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Jewish World Review
Dec. 16, 2008
/ 19 Kislev 5769
This is bigger than Barbie
By
Jonathan V. Last
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Last week, U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson issued what may be the first legal opinion ever to interest America's 8-year-old girls. He ordered a halt to all sales of Bratz dolls.
Come February, the popular toys will be pulled off store shelves, effectively killing the Bratz franchise. It's one of the most far-reaching intellectual-property decisions since Polaroid's 1985 victory over Eastman-Kodak, which forced Kodak out of the instant-camera business for good.
But let's start at the beginning - with Barbie. America's favorite fashion doll was born in 1959 and has been a mainstay for toy giant Mattel for half a century, despite many competitors.
In 2001, a company called MGA Entertainment launched a line of dolls called Bratz. They were sexed-up little numbers. Marketed to preteen girls, they often sported bare midriffs or fishnet stockings. In 2007, the American Psychological Association worried that Bratz were highly "sexualized."
In spite of this - or perhaps because of it - Bratz became big sellers. The fashion-doll market is roughly $2 billion a year, of which Barbie claims the lion's share. But Bratz made quick inroads.
By 2005, sales of Bratz dolls had reached $750 million. With the success of the toys came a host of ancillary products: lunch boxes, greeting cards, music albums, a TV series, a movie. Meanwhile, sales of Barbie plummeted as Bratz gobbled up market share.
But Barbie and Mattel had an ace in the hole: Bratz dolls were created by a man named Carter Bryant, who had previously worked for Mattel.
In 2004, Mattel filed suit against MGA, alleging that Bryant had created Bratz while he was still under contract with Mattel. Because of this, Mattel contended that it was the rightful owner of the entire Bratz empire. It sought $2 billion in damages.
After four years of wrangling and more than $110 million in legal fees, the case finally went to trial this year. The jury found mostly for Mattel, awarding the company $100 million (only a fraction of what it sought). But the jury was not clear on whether all the Bratz dolls - there are about 40 of them now - constituted copyright infringements, or just the original four models.
So it fell to Judge Larson to examine the dolls, case by case. (Larson, who presides in Riverside, Calif., has become something of a specialist on intellectual property and fictional characters. This year, he wrote a decision restoring the property rights to Superman to the heirs of co-creator Jerry Siegel.)
At the conclusion of his survey, Larson decided that all of the Bratz dolls were derivative of the work Bryant had done while under contract with Mattel. He issued an order declaring that, as of Feb. 11, all Bratz dolls must be removed from store shelves; the remaining supply of the dolls must be turned over to Mattel; and MGA must destroy the plates, molds and matrices used to manufacture the dolls.
And just like that, Barbie's primary competitor will vanish.
It may not come to that, of course. MGA is appealing Larson's decision, and it's possible that the two companies could come to an arrangement. MGA could be allowed to continue making Bratz dolls, as long as it pays royalties to Mattel. Or Mattel could relaunch Bratz under its own aegis.
For now, though, Larson's destruction of Bratz stands as a twofold public good. First, the aggressive defense of intellectual property is one of the cornerstones of innovation. And second, the tarted-up Bratz really do look like streetwalkers.
It couldn't have happened to a nicer doll.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Jonathan V. Last is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Comment by clicking here.
Previously:
12/11/08 Creative destruction: Some businesses deserve to die and we're better for it
11/20/08 Time for perspective on election's numbers
11/13/08 Climbing back from calamity
11/03/08 Put aside candidates' faults and ponder their qualities
10/09/08 Regrettably, neither of the presidential hopefuls has a grasp on economic theory
09/22/08 Anti-abortion Democrats and global-warming Republicans are becoming increasingly important
09/09/08 On both sides, this year's political gatherings marked the start of changed strategies that have transformed the race
07/23/08 With policy shifts, Obama now seen as an ordinary pol
06/26/08 Bush failed to hold others responsible for their mistakes, and he let his admirable vice president do too much
02/18/08 GOP will unify as Obama and Clinton continue to vie
12/13/07 Fun begins as races tighten and shift
12/05/07 Iran's future: Would lower fertility rates lead to stability?
11/01/07 Nobel Prize in Economics — where Team USA still dominates the game
10/25/07 Handicapping the GOP's presidential horse race
10/11/07 Germany's Turks provide a lesson on immigration
09/13/07 British battle can offer us a perspective on casualties
09/12/07 Alas, GOP seems set to take hit in Senate
08/30/07 Europeans have supplanted backbones with capitulation
08/24/07 Politics holds the key to ensuring a healthy growth in population
08/17/07 Finessing the Democratic center
08/10/07 Woohoo! Satire seeing a revival
07/31/07 Historical model: For Obama, it's Carter
07/26/07 Baseball, apple pie, a 2nd chance
07/24/07 Harry Potter and the alchemy theory
07/06/07 Life is hard — and often short. The perils of professional wrestling
06/21/07 After Bush: Gingrich and others worry that his shortcomings could have a far-reaching effect on the GOP
03/09/07 Why the British outclass us in acting
01/23/07 Romney: Seriously great, but with baggage
12/23/06 When truth is transpicuous
12/05/06 A realistic plan: Split the country in two
11/08/06 We could easily pull out of Korea and let China have regional hegemony. But would it be the right thing?
10/24/06 The decline of revolution
10/18/06 Why the free market is king
08/07/06 Democracy, of itself, not solution to all problems
08/01/06 We get the movies we deserve
07/27/06 How long will U.S. empire last?
© 2006, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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