Mattel, it’s a win/win baby.

Ok, so I am still working on my bookmarks, and finding a lot of dead links and good links and…I’m getting off topic.  Well in looking through my links I saw mention that MGA won against Mattel.  What?!? Where have I been?  I seriously need to find a good news website to look at.  Any good websites out there people?  I seldom watch it on tv so toss’em at me.  Anyway, so it seems that the court found in favor of MGA and basically said that MGA was in their right to look at the drawings and sculpts done by Bryant and say “Neat idea!  We’re gonna take that and slap it with our own magic dust and see what comes out.”  Now MGA did get a slap on the hand for interfering with Bryant’s contract with Mattel, and they do have to pay Mattel 10,000 dollars for that.  But Mattel owes, right now, MGA roughly 89 million, that I believe could triple once things like lawyers fees are calculated in.  Damnnnn Mattel.  Add on to all of this that no sooner the verdict was read that Mattel’s stocks fell and continued to fall throughout the day.  But I love the last bit of the verdict that I couldn’t agree with more.  “America thrives on competition; Barbie, the all-American girl, will too.”  So true.

 

Now don’t get me wrong.  I loved Barbie as a child, and I may or may not buy them for any future children I have.  I just don’t know how I feel about Barbie now and may prefer my kids to play with another doll.  We’ll see.  But I don’t wish ill will on the company or Babs, I just feel they were trying to be sneaky and underhanded with the way they went after MGA.  They saw they weren’t the number one girl’s toy any more and they didn’t like the competition.  And this is how I feel, don’t get pissed and try to take out the competition, get smart and try to better your product so people will come back to your products.  Bratz give kids a different kind of doll and a different kind of playing experience.  Where Barbie is all princess and fru-fru, Bratz are more urban and flashy.  Perhaps Mattel needs to focus more on the customers they already have and focus on making their stuff better and making their current customers happy then spending all their cash on lawsuits to take out their competition.

It made me feel so happy and sad to read the owner of MGA was crying when the verdict was read.  Sad because he had no idea if his blockbuster toy was going to be taken away from him and he was scared, and happy that he knew he could keep his product and continue to produce it.  This whole thing just makes me bitter towards Mattel.  I mean could you imagine the jobs gone if the company failed due to losing Bratz.  Not only that, taking away a product the company has worked hard on to market and produced.  And it’s not like Mattel can say anything about the way they came up with Bratz dolls, look at how Barbie came to be.  So how can they be ticked that someone got their ideas through someone that worked through them.  Karma much?

There was also something in the case where MGA says that Mattel hired spies for several years to sneak into the MGA Toy Fair area and spy on what they made and were releasing.  And you guys know this is true.  There is no way you can argue that My Scene is not a Bratz knock-off in Barbie version.  And did you notice how Bratz would come out with a line and My Scene would soon follow or My Scvene would come out with something and then Bratz would release something similar.  One that comes to mind are the swapping heads dolls.  Bratz and My Scene both did them around the same time.  What a coincidence right?  But the copying doesn’t bother me as much.  Art creates art right?  So it’s bound ideas will be used by others, but the spying bothers me to no end.  Do you know even stores do that?  Seriously.  Found my manager’s notepad once when I was working at K-mart, I opened it to try to find out who’s it was, and he had written all over a page to go to Target and see how they set up certain areas, see how they set up shelves, see how their customer service was, etc.  So it happens, but it just bothers me.  It’s kind of like being an internet troll in my eyes.  So it seems Mattel may pay for spying as well.

So yeah, I’m happy Mattel didn’t win.  They were trying to take out the competition in a real crap way.  They wanted to force collectors and children to buy their dolls, which I think is low.  Focus on your own stuff Mattel!  You got paid for the contract issues, so just focus on your own stuff now. That is all they should have been compensated for in my book.  I guess I just hate they were trying to be a bully and push their weight around and force people to buy their items because they’re aren’t many mass produced toy store shelf options.  So yay for MGA.

Well I’m off peeps.  I’m still working on these bookmarks and I’m super tired for some reason.  I’m worried about that right now since I had this feeling before not to long ago.  I’m wondering if it’s my body reacting to the crazy weather we’ve been having as of late, is anyone else having unseasonably cool weather in their parts too?  Or maybe it’s the rainy day, but it’s been sunny other days and I still feel tired.  Don’t know.  Wish it would go away though.  Ahhhh!  Ok, talk to you peeps later.  Be good until then.  Bye for now. 

Loves ya,
Mouse