mga entertainment – Techdirt (original) (raw)

BMG Settles With Toymaker Over Parody Song Used To Sell Pooping Unicorn Toys

from the aw-crap dept

Back in February, a copyright case that somehow made it past me, but embedded below, was filed by BMG against MGA Entertainment over a song the latter used for one of its toys. That song was called “My Poops” and is a parody of The Blackeyed Peas’ “My Humps.” You can go hear the song, which MGA used in advertising for the toy, in the link above. There are similarities, yes, because this is a parody song.

Parody that could have fallen under fair use protections, had the suit concluded at trial. Sadly, this is yet another one of these copyright suits that ends not with any clear results on the question of parody protections, but instead in a confidential settlement.

U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos terminated the case in an order published on Tuesday after the two sides told him that they had resolved the dispute.

Terms of the settlement were not available, and representatives for the companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment and more information on Wednesday.

Now, the initial suit demanded $10 million in damages be paid to BMG, so you have to imagine the settlement wasn’t for that high amount. Whether any money changed hands is unclear, of course, but I don’t think it should have. Yes, the toy dances to “My Poops” when you press a button on it. Yes, the company put out a music video featuring the song as an advertisement for the toys. But the factors for a use being covered by fair use are:

The purpose of the use in this case was parody. It was turning the hit song into something ridiculous, lampooning it all the more so by taking a genuine pop song and turning it into a song about, well, pooping unicorns. The nature of the original work is indeed a creative one, so there’s that. The parody song in question, on the other hand, was something like 30 seconds, representing a small percentage of the total runtime of the original work. As to the fourth factor, well, I’d love to hear anyone argue that “My Poops” somehow has a negative impact on the potential market for the band’s 2005 song “My Humps.”

But we’ll never get to see the outcome had MGA tried a fair use defense. And that’s crappy.

Filed Under: black eyed peas, copyright, my poops, parody, pooping unicorn
Companies: bmg, mga entertainment

Pooey Puitton Proactively Sues The Shit Out Of Louis Vuitton

from the doo-doo dept

All one needs to do to get a sense of how Louis Vuitton, famed maker of bags, views trademark law is do a short review of past stories it’s been involved in on this site. What you will come away with is the clear sense of the company as laughably litigious, insanely aggressive in bullying others, and as being entirely devoid of having anything resembling a sense of humor or respect for parody.

And that last bit appears to be resulting in yet another dispute, this time between Louis Vuitton and MGA Entertainment Inc., which makes the Pooey Puitton toy handbag. And, yes, that toy handbag is literally shaped like a piece of poop. Apparently, Louis Vuitton has been making comments to some of MGA’s commercial clients that the toy handbag infringes its trademarks, leading to MGA filing suit against LV asking for a declaratory judgement that its parody bag is not in fact infringing.

In a complaint filed on Friday in Los Angeles federal court, MGA Entertainment Inc said no reasonable consumer would mistake Pooey Puitton, which retails for $59.99, for costlier Louis Vuitton handbags.

“The use of the Pooey name and Pooey product in association with a product line of ‘magical unicorn poop’ is intended to criticize or comment upon the rich and famous, the Louis Vuitton name, the LV marks, and on their conspicuous consumption.”

All of which puts the Pooey Puitton bag squarely in the category of protected parody. Beyond that, any claim that the public is going to look at the bag as anything other than a joke played on upon LV, rather than having association with the company, is pretty laughable.

But my interest is centered around LV’s apparent thinking that anyone is going to mistake a literal piece-of-shit handbag, and think that it was made by Louis Vuitton. That doesn’t seem to me to be the kind of claim a luxury handbag maker would want to make, yet here we sit. Or, more likely, the Louis Vuitton folks simply can’t help themselves from failing to appreciate the joke and instead have to go the bullying route.

Filed Under: likelihood of confusion, pooey puitton, trademark
Companies: louis vuitton, mga entertainment

Judges May Reconsider Handing All Bratz Dolls Over To Mattel

from the going-too-far dept

We were pretty shocked when a judge ordered doll maker MGA to hand over pretty much everything having to do with Bratz dolls to Mattel, the maker of Barbie — one of the key products Bratz competes against. While some of the facts are disputed by various parties, it does seem pretty clear that a Mattel designer was working on the concept of Bratz and then went to MGA to make the dolls instead. Mattel claims that it owns the entire concept because its contract with the designer included all rights to things he worked on while under their employ. Even if you accept all that, it seemed to go too far to not just provide monetary payments and/or an injunction, but to tell MGA to hand over the entire line of dolls including future plans for the dolls. That seems to go well beyond the scope of what’s reasonable — and it seems like the appeals court might agree. It has lifted the original deadline for when MGA had to transfer stuff over to Mattel and seems to be considering whether itself goes too far, saying that handing all of that over to Mattel seemed “draconian.”

Even if we grant that the designer created the dolls while he worked at Mattel, it takes more than just an idea to be successful. Yet this ruling seems to put the entire value of not just the Bratz line of dolls, but every forward thinking innovation in the Bratz line, into that single idea. That’s going way too far. Sure, perhaps there should be some sort of sanctions or punishment, but MGA did a lot more than just see this idea, snap its fingers and have a success on its hands. The execution was what made it work, and it seems silly to ignore all of that and assume that the entire value is in the idea — and everything else needs to be handed over because the guy had the idea while still at Mattel.

Filed Under: barbie, bratz, dolls, ideas, ownership
Companies: mattel, mga entertainment

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