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Mattel, Bratz and Creative Rights

David Byrne: Mattel, Bratz and Creative Rights

Mattel, Bratz and creative rights

The toy giant Mattel has won its lawsuit against the makers of Bratz dolls, the slightly slutty "ethnic" dolls that have been selling well while sales of Mattel's Barbie line have been dropping. The ruling states that since the designer of the Bratz line did the initial doll drawings while employed by Mattel, the rights to the Bratz line now belong to Mattel - whomph, the competition is eliminated in one fell swoop.

I seem to remember reading about the Bratz dolls a year or so ago - the designer tried to get Mattel interested in the line, but with their traditional and long-standing emphasis on the All American Breasts of Barbie, they passed. So, the designer went elsewhere, and despite some initial resistance, the line of dolls caught fire and began to threaten Miss Barbie herself. The Bratz dolls, who look to be of indeterminate ethnic origin - but definitely not Anglo-Saxon - started to crowd out the tall white chick with pointy tits. Do we have a metaphor for immigration attitudes (and policies) here or what?

The designer should have gotten Mattel to sign away their rights after passing on his idea, though I suspect Mattel would not have done so unless they had to. Just like record companies will often pass on an artist's record and then prohibit anyone else from releasing it, they are scared of both being shown up and possible competition. Forget the lip service that competition is good for business - business will squash any competition if it has half a chance. Maybe the designer got a verbal go-ahead from someone at Mattel to seek interest elsewhere; maybe he thought they'd forget about his drawings; or maybe he thought they wouldn't go so far as to claim the rights based on the drawings - but he didn't get a proper release, so legally he's fucked. Though it doesn't seem fair.

It seems to me that it would be nice if there were a fairer attitude towards passed-over creations. What if the law said this: if a company like Mattel turned down his drawings, then they would automatically revert back to him after some period of time - a couple of years, for example. Long enough for Mattel to reconsider, given an always-changing marketplace, but short enough that the creation, whatever it is, might still be relevant. This could apply to recording artists, screenwriters, designers, authors and photographers - where the same kind of proprietary nastiness happens all the time.

David Byrne is well known as the musician who co-founded the group Talking Heads (1976-88) in New York. On record and in concert, the band was acclaimed by critics and audiences alike; more importantly, however, they have proven to be extremely influential. Talking Heads took popular music in new directions, both in terms of sound and lyrics, and also introduced an innovative visual approach to the genre. Photo by Jeff Harris

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At a recent lecture given by long time subversive artists Gilbert and George, there was a fantastic point made which highlighted the absurdity of institutionalised religion and the anomalous status it's given in today's society.

They said something along the lines of....

"Imagine if a biscuit company was able to sell itself the way the church does. The biscuit company would probably be able to do a lot better if it was able to offer eternal life (in addition to biscuits) as a reward for your money"

Now the idea also works in reverse.

Imagine if there was a company that didn't pay tax, had little or no oversight from the state legal system, was found to be fingering children- had tried to hide it- their leader and the leader's brother were both implicated and they still refused to open themselves up to public scrutiny.

You probably wouldn't buy their biscuits would you.

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This entire fiasco is an incredible over reaction. Australia is an easy target. Why? because we are honest, transperant and we talk about our failings. Is there aggression and iolence in Australia? Sure, like any country. But we face it head on and we work to eliminate it. What about the stories of the 100’s of thousands of Indian workers who are treated as slaves in the middle east and nobody says anything? What about the fact that India still has entrenched pedophilia in terms of child brides? What about the crushing poverty embraced by more than 60% of the Indian people while this nation runs around building nuclear warheads? A storm in a teacup, an over reaction, and a diversion from some the really bad issues facing India. What is really happening here is that students are being unnecessarily frightened. meaning they will miss out on what could be the opportunity of their lifetime. - Daryl
 
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