Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

I don’t know if I’m more disturbed by the Olsen Twins filing suit against Acclaim, or by the fact that Mary Kate and Ashley are heading to their freshman year at NYU with an approximate worth of 150 million – each.

[Celebrity Justice] has obtained a lawsuit filed by Mary-Kate and Ashley against video game giant Acclaim Entertainment for nearly half a million dollars. Acclaim was supposed to develop and market the games for the Olsens, but according to the suit, Acclaim has not only taken the brand and “run it into the ground,” but hasn’t paid out all the royalties.

According to Chuck Kenworthy, a Los Angeles entertainment litigator, this suit is about “respect.” The Olsens are trying to send a message to everyone they do business with: we may be kids, but you can’t push us around.

It’s kind of like Activision’s case against Viacom, only in reverse. See, Activision sued Viacom, claiming that Viacom sold them the license on Star Trek and then ran the franchise into the ground and devalued the game license that had cost them so much. Now, The Olsen Twi—Oh, excuse me. Mary Kate and Ashley (who no longer wish to be referred to as “The Olsen Twins”) are claiming that by producing substandard games (and failing to pay out all royalties), Acclaim has devalued their rather daunting franchise.

So, here’s my question – who’s responsible for what, now?

On the one hand, we have Activision and Viacom. Activision purchased a license to produce games for a franchise that was – at the time – incredibly popular and very trusted. But it can also be said that many people felt the Star Trek franchise was in decline at the time. Now, if Activision paid what the license was worth at the time and Viacom – through a series of blunders and stupid decisions – later devalued that franchise, does Activision have the right to expect remuneration? Or could it be argued that granting the license to Activision was, in fact, one of the blunders – and that Activision’s widely-reviled Trek games had contributed to the franchise’s loss of value.

Now, Mary Kate and Ashley^TM made the decision to license their names to a series of games, can they later claim damages if they feel the games aren’t worth spending money on? Even if they made the decision to license, signed the contract, and cashed the check?

And how far back do we go? Can Atari now sue Spielberg because the license on E.T. failed to deliver the sales it should have? And, alternately, can Spielberg sue Atari, claiming that their treatment of the license resulted in the valuable E.T. title forever being associated with cruddy, slapped-together, nonsensical video games rushed to market to cash in on a popular craze? And who sues whom over The Matrix? Atari made Enter the Matrix – considered one of the most overhyped and underdeveloped games of the year – but the Wachowski Bros. made The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions, effectively devaluing the Matrix name in the marketplace (and I say that as one of the few people in the world who liked the entire trilogy).

It’s not that I don’t feel people should be able to work hard on building a brand and then not have legal recourse when somebody undoes their work – it’s that I’m beginning to wonder who bears the ultimate responsibility, or even if that responsibility can be assigned in the first place.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 26th, 2004 at 8:16 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.