Today on Weird AG News: some astronomer, Lucianne M. Walkowicz sued American Girl because they believe AG ripped off their likeness, name and story for Luciana Vega, the 2018 Girl of the Year. Walkowicz works at the Alder Planetarium and has spent much of their career with NASA, whom American Girl partnered with to create Luciana.
Walkowicz claims AG got these aspects of Luciana from them:
-They extensively lecture about Mars exploration and has researched and discussed the Lyra constellation, which contains Vega as it's largest star.
-In one of their TED talks, Walkowicz has a purple streak in the right side of her black hair and wears holographic shoes. Sounds familiar?
The lawsuit also claims American Girl designers, including lead contemporary doll designer Rebecca DeKuiper, watched Walkowicz speak at a convention center Madison in 2016, and a NASA consultant AG worked with attended one of their lectures in Pittsburgh the same year.
If successful, American Girl will be forced to cease and desist sales of Luciana and her collection and they will have to pay an unspecified amount of damages. In addition, their trademarks for Luciana and Luciana Vega would be canceled.
Do you guys think American Girl copied Lucianne? I don't really think so, in my opinion. Holographic shoes and streaks are typical space-inspired fashion, and they were already writing Luciana's books in 2016, so they couldn't just have gone to a convention and been like 'let's copy this person'. Even if these claims seem to be correct, American Girl has a strict "no ideas outside of the company, no making dolls of real people" policy, so I doubt they'd try to copy some random astronomer- especially when Luciana wants to be an astronaut, not an astronomer.
CORRECTION, 5/6/20: Lucianne uses they/them pronouns.
Some autocorrect errors "deserve" not "Reserved" and so on. I've missed a few - but hopefully you got my point. I haven't added that I'm on a spectrum too and I know firsthand that people like us sometimes lose critical thinking when liking something very much. It sounded cold, and it wasn't my intention (I just sometimes give that impression, you probably get it), so I wanted to add this. Again, no worries, Luciana will be fine. It's just about money.
Oh honey, you really need to work on some critical thinking when it comes to AG. Also this isn't "some astronomer", this is "a astronomer" and she Reserved your respect as well as AG. From a standpoint of an adult she absolutely has a case. It doesn't matter the story was already being made, it can be adjusted. And single colorful streak in the hair isn't a "space fashion", it's a 90s fashion (which is also the time when the astronomer in questions was a teen). Isn't it weird that AG never asked her to promote Luci when she would be so cool and similar to do it (and they watched her lectures so it would be nice). Don't worry,…
I don't think AG copied her. Please update with everything that happens! AG has been sued before this Luciana situation? What? If Lucianne wins, will ag shut down or will Luciana just be retired?
AGLoverMiaStClair you're right about being proud that you're an AG doll, (I would be if I were one) but I don't think that's why Lucianne is suing. It's because AG didn't ask permission. Although, it's obvious AG isn't guilty because they started planning Luciana years in advance.
@justagirlwholovesag given the speed of legal things, and the fact that Luciana has now been sold for three years straight, she may have not pursued it at first because the doll would not have been sold by the time the trial would have carried out. Now that Luciana is sticking around, it seems, there’s probably time now for Lucianne to see compensation.