Jezebel: late capitalism

Does This Look Like "Intellectual" Property To You?

Moe — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:00:00 EDT

I'm supposed to be in court in Riverside County, California right now. See, a few years ago I wrote this thing about how the Bratz dolls, the first dolls in the history of slutty-looking dolls to unseat Barbie for slutty looking doll hegemony (and the career ender of numerous highly remunerated Mattel executives), were actually masterminded inside the Mattel design center. Apparently they were scrapped because upper management didn't want to do anything to "cannibalize" their Barbie brand so the idea went nowhere and a doll designer took it to this guy who owned a scrappy little toy company that mostly specialized in competing for third and fourth tier licensing rights — like say, the right to manufacture keychains featuring crude electronic games bedecked in Pokemon logos — and that guy, with the help of a few more designers and a few thousand Shenzhen factory workers, turned the sketches into a multibillion dollar property. Well, Mattel is a litigious company — they were once known to sue Barbie fan clubs for trademark infringement — and when they read my story they apparently launched some sort of investigation and eventually sued the Bratz guys. Last summer I got deposed.

It was no small feat for the Mattel lawyers to track me down, probably because I had so cleverly in the interim changed my common-law name to "Moe," but after numerous false starts they finally convinced me and seven or eight lawyers to show up in a conference room someplace downtown for a few hours of grilling about a story about which I couldn't have ethically provided any information even if I remembered it, which I of course did not. As we left, my lawyer, the in-house counsel of Dow Jones, marveled at the billable hours that had been assembled for our presence alone. It was enough to fund a reality show-worthy bar mitzvah. And they'd been at this case for years!

Today the case is supposed to go to trial and I am apparently, according to an email from the Gawker office manager, to be there, although I am not, because I don't leave my house to buy toilet paper if there is perfectly decent newspaper lying around, and the thing is going down in California. But it's fascinating to read about the internal memos describing the increasingly heated battles between these two dolls: "The House Is On Fire!" one is titled; fixing the problem will require "grenades."

"Complacency will kill us," the company concluded.

But when you live in a country in which a few sketches depicting dolls with stoned eyes and platform shoes and oversized heads vaguely conjuring anorexia is multibillion dollar "intellectual property" whose protection demands numerous eight figure retainers funding whole divisions of preposterously well-educated legal minds and even holds a few multimillion dollar holiday bonuses in the balance, it's hard to feel anything other than "complacency."

Brawl Over Doll Is Heading To Trial

Outsourcing Your Pregnancy To India Is "Gaining Acceptance," Doctors Say

Moe — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:00:28 EST

Remember that supposedly burgeoning trend of women outsourced their pregnancies to India that had us all agape a few months back? Well, the AP visited Anand, India, the capital of the rent-a-womb industry, to report on the trend. Turns out people are really coming around to the notion! One happy customer, an Indian-born furniture importer based in LA, plans to return to India to contract out her second pregnancy. (To the same mother? They don't say. That would be weird, right? Or less weird?) Anyway, the mothers, pictured, all live together in a nice house where they are waited on hand and foot by a "team of maids, cooks and doctors" in an estate offset by "rolling hills." No wonder, then, that area women are "flocking" to sign up their uteri. And learning a little about prenatal care in the process.

Suman Dodia, a pregnant, baby-faced 26-year-old, said she will buy a house with the $4,500 she receives from the British couple whose child she's carrying. It would have taken her 15 years to earn that on her maid's monthly salary of $25. Dodia's own three children were delivered at home and she said she never visited a doctor during those pregnancies."It's very different with medicine," Dodia said, resting her hands on her hugely pregnant belly. "I'm being more careful now than I was with my own pregnancy."

While they're pregnant, surrogate moms are carefully counseled not to think of the babies as their own, but simply to think of themselves as, you know, gracious hosts. They are also counseled in double-edged sword that is the vast disparity in standards of livng

"The fetus is theirs, so I'm not sad to give it back," said Gheewala, who plans to save the $6,250 she's earning for her two daughters' education. "The child will go to the U.S. and lead a better life and I'll be happy."

And maybe one day be wealthy and infertile enough to outsource her very own pregnancy.

Outsourcing Pregnancies To India [AP]

Is America Too Powerful? Style.com's Greatest Minds Debate

Moe — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:20:04 EDT

Style.com is the internet portal for Vogue and W magazines, which is why its message boards mostly concern favorite models and how Allegra Versace is actually very healthy. But when active poster CaroChouette decided to log in earlier this week with the weight of American hegemony hanging on her shoulders, she opened the proverbial can of worms. Thus began the marathon thread Utterly Sick And Tired Of America Bashing, which will surely be remembered as one of the most thought-provoking, intelligent message board debates of our time, distilled for your viewing pleasure into helpful point-counterpoint soundbites.

Counterpoint:Your (sic) doing it yourself, the police officer of the world, I am not fond of the expression they are the new Hitlers, but If I think about the USA I have to admit that a lot of people are right.... Superpower USA it is only laughable, the only superpower I know is Anna Wintour..

OPENING REMARKS:

Point I am Canadian, but live in NYC. I love the US it gave me opportunities of a lifetime, and since I live here I respect it. I would not dare go onto an Italian forum or any forum in another country and insult that country! Where is the sophistication, the class????
Counterpoint Secondly, this war is like no other: all those in the past have not been so messed up as this. If there was a clearer and more in-depth study of this war you will see that the word crime is written all over it.

COCKY? OR JUST CONFIDENT..

Point I am glad this subject came up. I am an American. I will tell you this: Most Americans are aware of how others feel about us. Truthfully.... none of us care. I will tell you why: We believe others are jealous of our rights and freedoms. Yes, we at times are cocky, arrogant, and self- righteous. However we are also compassionateand loyal , and will be there in a second to help any country who doesn't respect the freedom we are all entitled to Our country is the place where all people want to live, want to dream..... why you ask ? Beacuse anything is possible here.
Counterpoint: Yah......I'm not the only one. I've actually taken the next step and am MOVING out of this country......This country is over flowing with ignorance, corruption, bulling, and arrogance. And yes the most of the world does NOT like us.

AND NOW COME THE TEARS..

Point I went to bed and couldn't sleep at all. I've to solve some personal things. I guess they kept me awake. So I'd logged in again. I'm a bit amazed how this thread ended up......anyway, my grandfather and mother who fought underground during WWII in the Netherlands with danger for their own lifes have always been very grateful to the American, Canadian and English troops who'd came to their rescue. Maybe it's because I can't sleep but I'm really teary..
Counterpoint: I'm a sensative individual about War - I'll tell you that I cry myself to sleep when I image the difficulty that they are living in. I honestly cry for these people, and I'm sure they cry too, but their cries are more silent and unheard to the world.

Point As we say here in America, F*CK the HATERS! ;)

BLAH BLAH BLAH MISCELLANEOUS

Counterpoint I still can't forget what a very arrogant men in the immigration office said to me on my return from Morocco when I showed him my brazilian passport, "Why are you still traveling with your Brazilian passport when you're an American? Make sure you put this one away and use the right passport next time". Excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me??????????????? I wanted yo slap that bastard on the face! I have dual citizenship and I'm damn proud of being brazilian too! I use whichever passport I feel like at the moment thank you very much!
Point My 5 year-year old daughter is so patriotic that she herself respects the flag of America but expects the same from me & her dad. She is beautiful, inside and out, intelligent beyond her years and the most caring human being I've ever known (and I am not being biased).

AND NOW COMES THE PART WHERE THE AUTHOR MOVES WITH US TO CANADA..

Counterpoint I agree with you to a large extent...many Americans (cough, the Hiltons...hah) have it all and more...I sometimes take for granted the opportunities I have here... I certainly didn't mean to sound whiny with this original thread...I go to a Christian college, and part of that is mission and aid to the poor...we just held a benefit concert for Darfur... I am afraid that the rest of the world's view of the U.S. and it's people has been skewed by the media...channels like MTV, with shows such as "My Super Sweet Sixteen" may be fun to watch, but they are sickening...can you imagine spending thousands of dollars on a birthday party?!

WELL ISN'T THAT WHY YOU READ 'VOGUE' IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Exactly! In conclusion, CaroChouette deleted her original post and replaced it with a probing question of similar intellectual rigor:

Wow, I am amazed in regard to the responses this thread was getting....I think we can all agree that it would be a good idea to move on?! I actually have a fashion question this time! yay! So, what is more important to you personally...wearing what's trendy and in style, wearing whatever you want because you like it, or having a classic look that will be always be "in style?" I feel like I tend to have a more "classic" style, but I recently have been buying some more trendy pieces just because I feel kind of insecure in my white polo and khakis (which I guess is my version of "classic") surrounded by people wearing skinny jeans, and such...It's kind of hard to find a balance between the two, especially when you have a budget...yikes...

How To Outsource Your Pregnancy To India, Brought To You By 'Marie Claire'

Moe — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:30:51 EDT

Because our skills are so very very unique and, as globalization fanboy Tom Friedman would say, "untouchable," we didn't really worry about career competition from the, you know, caste of characters formerly known as the "untouchables." But then! Perez Hilton exposed the fact that even celebrity bloggers are coming from the Third World these days. And now this, from the August issue of Marie Claire:

Customer service, tech support..these days we outsource everything to India. So why not pregnancy?

NO LIKE REALLY TRULY. Pretty soon the Indians are not only going to be photographing and blogging about our celebuspawns, they're going to be, like, spawning them!

In all seriousness, we have given Marie Claire some shit but this story was incredibly awesome and dystopian and well-written in a way that we don't feel tempted to qualify with "for a gynomag" or "for us to poop on" or whatever. Buy it. (Just skip the $555 jeans!) Basically it's about rich women in America who are so self-absorbed and narcissistic that they will go to India to pay villagers (price: approx. nine pairs jeans) to surrogate mother their biological children because IT'S NOT LIKE THERE ARE ANY KIDS THAT NEED ADOPTING OVER THERE OR ANYTHING.