Toy maker sues Lady Gaga

NEW YORK (AP) — A toy company is suing Lady Gaga for more than $10 million, claiming the pop star sabotaged a deal to make a doll in her likeness that would play snippets of her music.

In a suit filed in New York City on Tuesday, MGA Entertainment, the maker of the popular Bratz doll line, said it paid a $1 million advance to the company that handles Gaga's merchandizing and spent a mint racing to meet deadlines to ship the dolls this summer.

The dolls were to feature some of the singer's outlandish costumes, as well as a "voice chip" with samples of her songs.

But the toy maker said the plan was derailed in the spring when the merchandizer, Bravado International, abruptly tried to back out of the part of the deal allowing the dolls to use the singer's music. MGA said Bravado then tried to delay sales of the doll until next year, when her new album is expected to be released.

The toy company claimed the singer's representatives ultimately stopped cooperating with the project while she went on a world tour. MGA said her refusal to sign off on the final doll designs is jeopardizing $28 million in expected revenue from the fall shopping season and holding up orders from 10 countries.

A representative for Lady Gaga called the lawsuit "ill-conceived" and said there was "no legitimate reason" to drag the singer into a dispute primarily between MGA and Bravado, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group.

Bravado issued a statement through a spokesman calling the lawsuit "meritless."

In the lawsuit, MGA's lawyers claimed that Lady Gaga's representatives were initially thrilled with the doll prototypes, although they had asked for a few tweaks. In one email cited in the lawsuit, Bobby Campbell, the vice president of Gaga's management company, the Atom Factory, asked if the doll could be "more supermodel-like" with "more of a cat-eye and sexier, poutier lips." He also discussed a doll with a removable head that would pop off to reveal a bloody stump.

"We would like to see options with and without a bloody stump for comparison," he wrote.

Bratz vs. Barbie?

I'm not sure it's even a contest but according to CNN Money and writer, Parija Kavilanz, Bratz are poised for a big comeback.
For the last few years, Mattel was embroiled in legal battles with the designer of the Bratz dolls and the final verdict went against Mattel to the surprise of many.  Isaac Larian, CEO of Bratz-maker MGA Entertainment had previously said that in spite of the victory, the actions against the company caused stores to lose confidence in the line thereby successfully destroying it. However, he seems to have had a reversal and has "said that he's pushing to try to get the Bratz franchise to where it once was."

Masquerade by Bratz, on store shelves by August

The Bratz Masquerade collection features a few boy character dolls, including "Vampire-Penn" and "Knight-Gable."

I hope these dolls are very successful. They were adorable and were actually my first foray into doll collecting! It was my collecting of Bratz that got me involved in internet dolls boards and it just took off from there. Watch this interesting video (after the brief ad). You will enjoy it.

Mattel Loses Bratz Doll Appeals Court Ruling to MGA

Looks like the giant, scary Mattel isn't all that powerful in the courts these days.
I thought this statement by an Apellate Panel Chief Judge, Alex Kozinski, was very true and just:

“Even assuming that MGA took some ideas wrongfully, it added tremendous value by turning the ideas into products and, eventually, a popular and highly profitable brand,” the appellate panel said in an opinion written by Chief Judge Alex Kozinski. “It is not equitable to transfer this billion-dollar brand, the value of which is overwhelmingly the result of MGA’s legitimate efforts, because it may have started with two misappropriated names.” 

Read more. 

From the Flickr photostream of callme_crochet