Mattel Now Using Song In Commercial... Which It Once Sued Over Copyright Infringement

from the change-of-heart? dept

Back in 1997, the band Aqua released a song called "Barbie Girl," that was actually somewhat critical of "Barbie doll" culture. Mattel, famous for its rather aggressive intellectual property stance, wasted little time in suing the band, claiming the song infringed on the company's rights. In 2002, everyone's favorite appeals court judge (seriously, the guy never fails to entertain) Alex Kozinski told Mattel too bad, parody songs are a part of what you get for being a cultural icon -- and included the classic line: "The parties are advised to chill."

It took seven years since that decision, but apparently Mattel had decided to heed Judge Kozinski's suggestion. Reader Sallo alerts us to the news that Mattel has actually licensed the song for a commercial -- though, they "adjusted" some of the lyrics to make it a little more pro-Barbie, rather than mocking-Barbie. Still, that's quite a jump: from suing the band for infringement to actually licensing and using the song in just a few years.

Filed Under: alex kozinski, aqua, barbie, commercials, copyright, parody, songs
Companies: mattel

Why Should Mattel Get Future Plans For New Bratz Dolls?

from the gross-injustice dept

Last year, we wrote about a somewhat horrific court ruling against MGA Entertainment, the makers of Bratz dolls, after getting sued by Mattel. If you don't follow the doll business, Bratz is really the first doll to successfully compete against the massively successful Barbie franchise in ages. However, the guy who came up with Bratz had worked at Mattel prior to going off on his own. Of course, this is the history of many different innovative companies. If you come up with a better idea while working at one company, it's a good thing that you can go off and build your own company. As we pointed out at the time, this is the story of plenty of successful tech companies. Steve Wozniak was at HP when he built the first Apple computer (and continued to work there for some time after Apple was moving forward). Robert Noyce helped found Fairchild (and later Intel) after growing frustrated at Shockley Transistor. Hell, William Shockley founded Shockley Transistor after feeling he didn't get enough respect at Bell Labs. Yet, here's a toy designer at Mattel who's entire operation is getting shut down because he came up with the idea while still employed at Mattel?

Even if you grant the somewhat troubling premise that the concept for the dolls was created at Mattel, at best you could make an argument that Mattel had some rights to an injunction and profits from the first generation of those dolls. Yet, the judge not only ruled that, but also that MGA had to give up all such dolls, and hand over all sorts of confidential info, including "all related products, designs, customer information and 'know-how' for a planned 2010 Bratz line." It's difficult to see any justification at all for forcing them to hand over future plans that had nothing to do with what the guy created while still at Mattel. MGA has now filed an emergency appeal, noting that if it does hand over such info and assets, it would have "devastating and irreversible consequences," which seems quite accurate. All in all, this seems like Mattel simply trying to stop competition, and it's a shame that the US court system seems to be helping.

Filed Under: barbie, bratz, ownership, trademark
Companies: mattel, mga entertainment

How Hasbro And Mattel Killed Interest In Online Scrabble

from the nice-work,-guys dept

We've been chronicling just how badly both Hasbro and Mattel screwed up in responding to the massive success of Scrabulous on Facebook. The ridiculously popular application was attracting over 500,000 users every day and (amazingly) making Scrabble cool again, pumping up sales of the physical board game. But, of course, the intellectual property lawyers freaked out and said "this must stop." The resulting legal threats and lawsuits created quite a lot of backlash and anger (and a boycott of Hasbro games). Venturebeat is now looking at the aftermath, and shows that the fight effectively killed all momentum for Scrabble on Facebook. Part of the problem may be that the game is now fragmented, with a Hasbro version serving some countries, a Mattel version serving others and the Scrabulous makers' "modified" Wordscraper on the market as well. The end result is that each has significantly fewer users than Scrabulous had. In fact, the monthly number of users pales in comparison to the daily number of users that Scrabulous had. Great way to kill a wonderful (free) promotion that was attracting thousands of new fans to the game.

Filed Under: business issues, legal issues, scrabulous, wordscraper
Companies: facebook, hasbro, mattel

If You Worked At Mattel And Thought About Making A Non-Barbie Doll, You Can't

from the how-dare-you... dept

A bunch of folks have sent in the story that the ultra-popular "Bratz" dolls have been banned by a judge following a long court case. The case revolved around a former employee of Mattel (makers of Barbie), who apparently developed the concept of the Bratz dolls while working there. However, he ended up going out on his own to produce them -- which is the history of an awful lot of American success stories over the years. Steve Wozniak developed the Apple computer while he was working at HP, but the company wasn't interested in making the machines. Robert Noyce (founder of both Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel) felt underappreciated at Shockley Transistor. There are plenty of stories of folks working at one company realizing that they could do a better job on their own -- and that leads to competition and innovation. There was also some evidence in the case suggesting the guy had actually developed the basic idea of Bratz well before he was even employed by Mattel, though it does sound like he continued to work on the idea on the side while employed there -- though only in designing the idea, not actually making the dolls. It was only after he had left Mattel that he actually moved forward with implementing the idea. To stop him from ever going to market with a doll concept he was thinking about for years just because he worked at Mattel seems ridiculous and very anti-competitive.

However, even if you grant that Mattel has some sort "ownership" over the ideas in this guy's head while he worked at Mattel, it should only apply to the first generation of Bratz dolls. However, the court has gone even further, barring everything having to do with the Bratz dolls. Mattel, of course, is thrilled. Bratz had been the first really successful competitor to the Barbie franchise, and getting a court to shut it down completely is a huge win for Mattel. There will be an appeal, of course. The judge at least allowed the products to stay on the shelves through the holiday season, and it's quite likely that the appeals court will put a stay on the injunction until it hears the case. Even if it's eventually decided at higher courts that Bratz somehow infringe on Barbie intellectual property, it seems like a fine, rather than a complete injunction is a much more reasonable punishment.

Filed Under: barbie, bratz
Companies: mattel, mga

Looks Like Someone Learned From The Scrabulous/Hasbro Mess

from the good-for-them dept

We've talked about how both Hasbro and Mattel seriously screwed up in dealing with Scrabulous, the online version of Scrabble written by two brothers in India and placed in Facebook where it became a huge hit. While the companies did make overtures to working with the brothers, eventually they sued to shut down the game, pissing off plenty of legitimate fans, leading to widespread boycotts of Hasbro and Mattel games, and allowing the brothers to create their own new game that has also won fantastic reviews.

It appears that not every game company is so short-sighted. Reader Doug Schneider writes in to let us know about a guy who created a virtual copy of the popular casual game Bejewled inside the virtual world World of Warcraft. Yet, rather than shut the guy down or threaten to sue him, the makers of Bejewled, Popcap Games, hired the guy to create an official version for World of Warcraft, saying that the original version lacked polish, so they figured it made sense to just hire him to clean it up and make an official version. What a concept.

Filed Under: bejeweled, fans, lessons, scrabulous, video games, world of warcraft
Companies: hasbro, mattel, popcap games

Mattel Apparently Learned Nothing From Hasbro's Scrabulous Disaster

from the doing-the-same-thing-repeatedly... dept

As you recall, Hasbro's decisions on how to deal with upstart Scrabulous backfired badly. The company first threatened Scrabulous, then tried to do a deal with them. When that failed it (finally!) built its own Facebook Scrabble and then sued Scrabulous. Rather than working to Hasbro's advantage, this backfired in a huge way -- pissing off plenty of people who swore never to use Hasbro's version of the game. And then it was just a matter of days until the Scrabulous guys came out with a new game that was close to Scrabble, but different enough to likely avoid all copyright and trademark claims.

Now, Hasbro only owns the rights to Scrabble in the US and Canada. Mattel owns the rights elsewhere. Now, seeing that Mattel had the distinct advantage of seeing how much backlash there was against Hasbro for its actions, and how poorly Hasbro's own Facebook Scrabble was received, you might think that Mattel would try a different path. Nope. Mattel has now forced Scrabulous offline outside of the US as well. To be fair, the guys from Scrabulous overplay their reaction as well. It's not that shocking. After all, this is how companies react these days. Rather than going with the faux outrage, why not just release WordScraper and get people to sign up for that, rather than any "licensed" version of Scrabble?

Filed Under: intellectual property, lawsuits, promotions, scrabble, scrabulous
Companies: mattel

The Way To Beat Scrabulous Is Not With Lawsuits Or Crappy Versions Of Scrabble

from the keep-trying dept

In the ongoing saga of Scrabulous, the unauthorized online version of Scrabble that has found many fans on Facebook but has upset Mattel and Hasbro (who own the rights to Scrabble), it appears that RealNetworks and Mattel have finally put out an official version of Scrabble for Facebook -- but the problem is that it's terrible. As the NY Times reports, "Facebook Scrabble takes a long time to load, does not always quickly update to show recent moves, and the words the game will accept do not reflect standard Scrabble dictionaries, or even the English language." While it's nice to see that Scrabulous still hasn't been forced offline, it seems odd that the authorized version is so terrible. It still probably would have made the most sense to just do a deal with the brothers who created Scrabulous (and there are still rumors that a deal has been discussed, but without a decent resolution), but if that doesn't work, the way to compete is with a better product. Putting out a product that's not very good isn't likely to win over many fans.

Filed Under: online games, quality, scrabble
Companies: facebook, hasbro, mattel, realnetworks

How Could A Game That Has Made Scrabble Popular Again Be A 'Bad Precedent' For Mattel?

from the please-explain dept

Back in January, we explored the news that both Hasbro and Mattel (who own the rights to the board game Scrabble in different regions) were upset and threatening to sue about the incredibly popular knockoff version Scrabulous on Facebook. As we pointed out at the time, shutting down the game would quickly piss off 2.3 million Scrabble fans -- many of whom were interested in the game for the first time, most likely leading to real sales of the board game. While the situation still has not been resolved (and Scrabulous remains online), the New York Times has the latest details that suggest that Real Networks is negotiating with Scrabulous' creators. Since Real has a deal to produce an online version of Scrabble (the article first says the deal is with Hasbro, and later says it's with Mattel, so it's not clear who the deal is with), perhaps this will all be worked out for the best. However, the article does mention that executives from Mattel are against the idea of settling with the creators of Scrabulous, fearing that it "would set a bad precedent."

That's lawyers speaking, not marketers. How could a fun online game that has rejuvenated interest in what was seen as a rather dull board game among many folks today, be considered a "bad precedent?" How could having millions of new fans of your game and treating them right, rather than depriving them of what they want be considered a "bad precedent?" Some may answer that the "bad precedent" would be that it would encourage others to create similar knockoffs of other Mattel games, but, again, if they drove as much interest in the originals as Scrabulous did, isn't that a good thing? Some may claim that it would deprive Mattel the opportunity to license the games for lots of money, but again looking at Scrabble as an example, the bigger fear for Mattel should have been the fact that many people didn't care about the game at all. By letting random people create the games for it, it can quickly determine which games work well online and then work with the creators of those games to put an official stamp on it. The Agarwalla brothers created this game at no cost to Mattel, who otherwise would have spent a ton of money to create it after which it might not have caught on in the same way Scrabulous did. This way the game has been created, tested and even built up an audience at no cost to Mattel. Shouldn't they consider that to be a good thing?

Filed Under: board games, promotions, scrabble, scrabulous
Companies: hasbro, mattel, real networks