Two brands that have defined the glamorous life of young girls and most likely to blame for the superficial nature of this demographic have pitted against each other in court. Big toy industry, Mattel, the creator of Barbie charged MGA Entertainment, the creator of Bratz, since “the federal jury found that Carter Bryant, the creator of the multi-ethnic, big-headed dolls, had created their characters and the name while he was under contract as a Barbie designer at Mattel” (Reuters). He had taket those designs to MGA Entertainment and has started a booming business that appeals to the same crowd that Mattel targets. Because of this problem, the Bratz line has declined Mattel’s sales by 4%. Bratz earn about $1 billion in annual sales and licensing fees.
They have committed a crime against fair play and although it is perhaps their own design, they have broken contracts. The copyright was supposed to belong to Mattel, but even though it was his own design, he has encouraged a competing company to copy the design and face damages. However, Bratz does not directly look as similar as Barbie and has its own style. Bratz dolls has an even more abnormally large head and eyes, contrasting the scaled Barbie. Since it is not a direct copy, would damages not be as severe?
For more information, check this article:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/mattel_inc/index.html?offset=10&s=newest
I think this is more a matter of contract law as opposed to copyright law, but they do overlap in this instance. I’m not sure how severe the penalty would be, but I think this is becoming a problem in which executives who have all the power can enforce contracts which employees must sign, prohibiting workers to embark on their own business ventures. In my final paper which examined some of the contracts that chefs have their employees sign to not disclose or use methods they learn in the kitchen is similar. However, the main difference would be that recipes are not copyrightable whereas these doll designs probably would. So I think, like you say, it is only a crime against “fair-play” (I haven’t heard of that term before, but it sounds similar to fair-use and maybe something that has to be examined in connection with the law,) and not infringement of a copyright. I think it is just a lesson to be weary of everything you sign and make sure contracts expire before you try to come up with something on you own. I would be curious what Evan would think about this.
This is a perfect instance of when one creative product leads to the creation of another, which is not exactly promoting “the progress of science and useful arts,” but does make some kids happy somewhere. I feel like stuff like this happens all the time in business without resulting in lawsuits. I agree with the previous comment that this seems more like a matter of contract law than copyright law. But it’s weird that this is just coming up now since Bratz has been out for a while. Don’t they have a movie too?
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