About a month ago, I read a book called Toyland, which (among much else I won't go into here) detailed a fair amount about copyright battles with Barbie and Bratz. At the moment, I'm reading McIllheney's Gold, which is officially about Tabasco sauce but so far seems to be more about copyright battles between the company and assorted other makers of hot sauce. (If you care, the sauce book is the more interesting of the two, because a nutty old Louisiana family is vastly more compelling subject than Bratz.)
The amount of time and money spent by lawyers and lobbyists to protect the product names seems crazy, but there are also examples (like "aspirin") of words that began as brand names and weren't protected. I was surprised to read that the word "escalator" used to be a specific company's (Otis) product name, and after the patents expired it was ruled that they couldn't renew copyright on the name because no other maker of moving stairs would ever be able to compete. Apparently, pepper sauce and fashion dolls are different than moving stairs, which I can only assume has something to do with industrial purchasers (the market for moving stairs) are dumber than retail consumers (the market for dolls and hot sauce). Or you know, maybe it's all about some crazy legal precedents that a few companies bought for themselves a hundred years ago. Perish the thought.
Since these deeply weird precedents aren't likely to disappear any time soon, if a drag queen or performance artist wants some fun letters from lawyers demanding them to cease and desist, they should try using the professional name of Barbie Tabasco. (Which actually, is a pretty good name.)
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