Barbie dolls

Mattel seeks to shut porn Web site it says uses Barbie trademarks

August 21, 2007


Toy maker Mattel went to court Tuesday to declare that the name of its clean-cut Barbie dolls doesn't belong on a model's pornographic Web site.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Mattel said the Web site for an adult entertainer named China Barbie has tried to benefit from Mattel's success with the 48-year-old line of dolls, which includes Barbie's sister, Skipper, her best friend, Midge, and Skipper's boyfriend, Kevin.

China Barbie's site says she's a 34D-22-33 (all natural!) 'cordial young lady' who sat behind the desks of some of the world's leading investment banking firms and advertising agencies in New York before getting into porn. It says her filmography includes 'Me Luv You Long Time,' 'Ethnic Cheerleaders 8' and 'Passport to Paradise,' and it charges $19.95 for monthly access to its photos and video clips.

The lawsuit said Mattel Inc. had registered its trademarks to protect the Barbie line of dolls and the $1.6 billion in sales that it generates. Mattel said it has sold more than a billion Barbie dolls worldwide and a typical American girl owns eight of them.

According to the lawsuit, the offending Web site is registered to Global China Networks LLC and is operated by Terri Gibson, a Hollywood, Fla., resident. http://www.chinabarbie.com/

A telephone message left for Gibson on Tuesday was not immediately returned, and an e-mail sent to China Barbie through the Web site bounced back.

The lawsuit said Global China Networks used a domain name containing the word 'barbie' in a 'bad faith attempt to profit from Mattel's Barbie trademarks' and had damaged Mattel's good name.

The lawsuit asked the court to order the transfer of the domain name registration to Mattel, to award damages of up to $100,000 and to order that any profits Global China Networks achieved be given to Mattel.

Mattel said the Web site is toying with an image it had carefully crafted since company co-founder Ruth Handler created the Barbie doll in 1959 after discovering that her daughter, Barbara, preferred to play with paper cutouts of adult female fashion dolls rather than baby dolls.

Barbie dolls

China Barbie
advertisement
* photos * board * contact * details
Overview
Date of Birth:
1 October 1978, New York City, New York, USA more
Trivia:
Her father was Jamaican, her mother was Chinese. more
Alternate Names:
Akari / Barbie
Filmography
Jump to filmography as: Actress, Self
Actress:

1. Asian Divas 3 (2003) (V)
2. Oral Sensations 7 (2003) (V)
3. Geisha Gash 3 (2002) (V) .... China Barbie
4. Believe It or Not (2001) (V) .... Interviewee
5. Extreme Teen 15 (2001) (V) .... Asian-Girl Interrupting A Drug Party
6. Pussyman's Shaving Starlets (2001) (V)
7. Da Juice 4 (2000) (V)

Self:

1. Me Luv U Long Time (2002) (V) .... Herself (China Barbi)
2. Asian Street Hookers 20 (2001) (V) .... Herself (China)
3. Asian Street Hookers 16 (2001) (V) .... Herself (China Barbie)

Chinese Barbie Girl Song Lyric

(Sing to the tune of Barbie Girl by Aqua)

Hiya liang nui!
Hi liang jai!
Want to ride in my Honda?
Sure liang jai!
Jump in!

* I'm a Chinese girl, in a Chinese world
Eating wonton, it's perfection
I have light brown hair, Sanrio everywhere
Frustration, in my generation.

Come on bb, let's go drink tea.

I'm a Chinese girl, in a Chinese world
Playing mahjong, nothing is wrong
I have tons of flares, tight shirts everywhere
Looking cocky, just can't stop me.

I'm Chinese, Asian girl, in a white-people world
Egg foo young, just for fun, I do laundry.

You're so tall, Chinese doll, eat some jook and chow mein,
No FOBS here, egg rolls there, fortune cookie.

Eat cha siu, eat bok choi, you can say I love Sam's club.

Repeat *

Come on bb, let's go drink tea.
Ai ai ai yah.
Come on bb, let's go drink tea.
Ooh ooh

Make me cook, make me clean, do whatever is mean
I can do some kung-fu, I have loads of bamboo.

Come jump in, let's play pool, cruise around just again,
Look and stare, dye your hair, rent some movies.

Gung jai mein, I'm jook seng, I go to the library
Bot paw girls are so jean, you can say I grow string beans.

Repeat*

Oh, that guy, kui tai mut gwai?
Well liang nui, I'll use my martial arts.
Oh I love you liang jai!

Just leave Barbie alone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

China Barbie®
Asian Dolls of the World

Part Number: 48759-9987
Year: 2002
Availability: Sold out
Edition: Foreign Issue: Philippine

Price
$28.99

Barbie® wears a sleeveless Cheongsam with a mandarin collar made of white material with a red flower print. Silver piping on the front represents “frog” buttons. She comes with red high-heeled shoes.

February 12, 2006
"A Barbie doll costs $20, but China only gets about 35 cents of that."

It's important to keep in mind that lots of things that are "Made in China" are really just assembled in China.

NYT...But often these days, "made in China" is mostly made elsewhere — by multinational companies in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States that are using China as the final assembly station in their vast global production networks.

Analysts say this evolving global supply chain, which usually tags goods at their final assembly stop, is increasingly distorting global trade figures and has the effect of turning China into a bigger trade threat than it may actually be. That kind of distortion is likely to appear again on Feb. 10, when the Commerce Department announces the American trade deficit with China. By many estimates, it swelled to a record $200 billion last year.

It may look as if China is getting the big payoff from trade. But over all, some of the biggest winners are consumers in the United States and other advanced economies who have benefited greatly as a result of the shift in the final production of toys, clothing, electronics and other goods from elsewhere in Asia to a cheaper China...

..."Basically, in the 1990's, foreign firms based in America, Europe, Japan and the rest of Asia moved their manufacturing operations to China. But the controls and therefore profits of these operations firmly rest with foreign firms. While China gets the wage benefits of globalization, it does not get to keep the profits of globalization."

..."The biggest beneficiary of all this is the United States," said Dong Tao, an economist at UBS in Hong Kong. "A Barbie doll costs $20, but China only gets about 35 cents of that."

Because so many different hands in different places touch a particular product, Mr. Dong said, you might as well throw away the trade figures.

"In a globalized world, bilateral trade figures are irrelevant," he argued. "The trade balance between the U.S. and China is as irrelevant as the trade balance between New York and Minnesota."....(Thanks to Orrin)

Trade is confusing because we still think in Industrial Age terms. We still think of a Barbie Doll as the plastic figure in the box. But most of what a Barbie is is not a thing, but a collection of ideas. Ideas created by advertisers and designers and marketers and TV producers. The person who negotiates with Target about how many inches of shelf-space the newest Barbie will get at Christmas time probably is paid more than a thousand assemblers in China.

"In a globalized world, bilateral trade figures are irrelevant," Yes. As a person with an interest in Apple Computers, I occasionally notice brief mentions of this or that Korean or Taiwanese firm being chosen to build the latest machine. But no one remembers their names, because they are not very important. iPods and Macs are mostly "made" in Silicon Valley and other high-tech neighborhoods around the globe. And in the offices of designers and advertisers in trendy enclaves in New York or London or Los Angeles.

And the chip sets are mostly "made" by engineers staring at computer screens, laying out patterns of wires and transistors, and watching how they "work" in emulations that only "exist" on computers. And "made" by the engineers who design chip fabs. The actual manufacturing is almost an afterthought.

This is especially true in the case of small batches of specialty chips. The design is sent to the manufacturer via the Internet, then sent to the chip fab from there, and soon an air-freight package of chips shows up wherever the gadget is being assembled, which is then sent to company that specializes in distribution...And possibly the people who are designing and selling the gadget don't even know where on the planet any of these steps are physically located.
Posted by John Weidner at February 12, 2006 08:44 AM
Comments

Exactly, John.

So many times over the years, a totalitarian (or at least authoritarian) government will confisc8 or copy the machinery or processes to make some desirable item, only to find that what it has confisc8d or copied produces poor products, or sometimes nothing of any value at all. They mistook the machinery or process as the valuable thing, and ignored (or killed!) the people who operated the machinery or process, and lost the very thing they tried to obtain. Ironic.... and so typical of those who think solely in materialistic terms.

Also, you have the folks who complain, "What? We're running a $200 billion dollar trade deficit with China/Japan/Korea/Lower Slobbovia?! We have to do SOMETHING before they own us, lock, stock, and barrel! Oh, our children will wind up as slaves to those foreigners, to pay off such a debt!" Jeez. As if those foreigners can actually take home a chunk of the Lower 48.....

I look at it this way-- if China (or whoever) wants to take 200 billion pieces of paper with funny designs printed on them in green and black ink as payment for all the food, clothing, oil, electronic doodads, and so on, that we import from them each year, I think that's peachy. It's only paper after all, and if all that paper is going to do the foreigners any good, they'll have to spend it with us (ultimately) to buy stuff we make, and we make out like bandits AGAIN.

Granted, that's a gross oversimplification, but so many people in this country of ours just don't "get it".

P.S. Sorry for the circumlocution with the numeral 8, but your naughty-words filter is cranked up WAAAY too high, John. It won't let me write "c-o-n-f-i-s-c-a-t-e" because it doesn't like the fact that it contains the letters "s-c-a-t"
Posted by: Hale Adams at February 12, 2006 02:26 PM

If I have a way to control the filtering, or turn it off, I've yet to discover it. I see thay I can't use confisc8. How about shit? Poop? If this post appears, then they went through...

If China did own us, they would continue to run things as we do, and you'd never notice the difference. And if they tried to make changes, they would probably destroy the value of their investments, and we would then buy them up cheap.

Historically, foreigners have tended to buy American properties at the top of the market (provoking cries of dismay) and then are forced to sell out when prices fall (and our unscrupulous sharps are waiting to buy for Centimes what they sold for Francs).