New York, NY – The Toy Manufacturing Association of America (TMAA) has filed a lawsuit on behalf of its clients like Fisher Price and Mattel against Santa Claus for giving away countless toys every Christmas cutting in the manufacturer's profits.
“We don't know what he's doing up there. He's got some toy duplicating device and he's just giving them away for free. He's violating trademarks, copyrights, the whole gamut of intellectual property issues,” said TMAA executive Barry Hamburg. “Santa must be stopped.”
Santa's magical method for producing infinite copies of toys without use of materials opens up sticky legal issues for the “Saint” as well as violates laws regarding the conservation of matter.
Santa said he knew this issue was coming. “You cut into these big corporations' profits and the first thing they do is bring out the lawyers. Don't they know I'm giving them free promotion and getting toys to kids that wouldn't be able to purchase them anyway? They should be paying me,” said Santa.
If the court rules in favor of the TMAA, this could open the floodgates for lawsuits against the Easter Bunny from the American Egg Board and the Shoe Fairy from the National Shoe Foundation.
Many advocates of the “free toy” movement supported Santa in his fight against the TMAA including Free Toy Foundation founder and former Santa elf, Mitch Penman. “I think the TMAA is fooling themselves if they think that stopping Santa is going to improve their business. How are its millions of customers going to feel about them when they wake up Christmas morning and find that Santa hasn't arrived? Toys just want to be free,” said Penman.
A federal judge has filed an injunction to stop Santa from delivering any toys this Christmas pending a review of the case. Santa has filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court to remove the injunction.
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