In what appears to be the exact opposite of Jeff’s post, there is talk of extending IP protection to fashion:
After coauthoring an extensive piece for the Stanford Law Review about why American fashion designers should have copyright protection against inexpensive knockoffs, something Euro pean designers have enjoyed for more than 25 years, Suk became a sought-after authority on the subject. Now Senator Charles Schumer of New York is drafting legislation that would give American fashion designers copyright protection and Suk is helping with the bill’s language.
“Books, music, film, and art are protected by copyright law,” Suk says one afternoon in her law school office. “But fashion is not. I wanted to question all of that. Lots of people take for granted that fashion is an area where creativity is involved, and they also overlook the fact that there is no protection for designers.”
The lack of a fashion copyright law here has given rise to an entire industry that reinterprets – fashionistas call it blatant pirating – high design on the cheap. A $2,000 cocktail dress is inexpensively copied and sold for $80 by Forever 21 or pricey Balenciaga shoes are replicated by Steve Madden for $60.
Reinterpreting is to the fashion world as sampling and mixing are to the music world.
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“Today’s Industry Leaders are Tomorrows Pirates”
and logically, yesterday’s industry leaders are today’s pirates: Example: Microsoft. After having been thoroughly punished by Antitrust in the past, they are now calling for action against Google because of their inability to compete and gain the consumer’s preference. Their CEO is also publicly pushing for an internet tax on usage. I don’t know how much I blame the company; after being burned by antitrust legislation, they were forced to hire many lawyers and lobbyists in defense, and naturally being lawyers and lobbyists, this eventually led to an aggressive shift to utilize the apparatus of coercion. Essentially, the state breeds statist entrepreneurs; in today’s corporatism, one of the most important investments an capitalist can make is in lobbyists, and any industry leader is infested with political ties and professional schemers.
The people who purchase $80 replicas of “high fashion” were never going to buy that $2,000 dress anyway. So how do the designers think they’ll benefit?
Well, copyright has markedly improved the overall well-being of its citizens. Defining property as whatever I think of — even if unlimited in scarcity — will surely improve society.
> Well, copyright has markedly improved the overall well-being of its citizens.
Freudian slip?
On the bright side, when this slows to a crawl the speed at which clothing styles and trends change, I might finally have a chance at catching up and not being 10 years out of date anymore…
It would seem that at the least this will make clothes more expensive by requiring the replica resellers to purchase a copyright exemption.
However, depending on how it’s implemented, it would seem that it’s possible this would affect normal clothing for the masses. If one designer can copyright the equivalent of “spaghetti straps” another the “scoop neck” while a third the “turtle neck”, suddenly all my clothes require the manufacturer attain a license, thus making them more expensive to me (or at least retard the development and innovation of new fashion).
And if I make my own clothes will I have to buy a license to make a hooded sweatshirt?
So if a fashion designer copyrights “hand made” knitted sweaters. Does that mean granny will be forbidden from making them herself?
Mike b, if the common folk can look like the rich… what’s the point of being rich? The clothes demand high prices because they are scarce. Now enter a flood of cheap knock offs… The rich won’t pay the high price to wear something the not so rich can just pretend to share.
Me? I’m wearing a hoodie and cargo pants.
Wait, I’m confused because I thought people wouldn’t create and be innovative without copyrights. So they are confirming that designers can be successful, grow and make money without copyrights as it has been done in the past?
Preventing the $80 dress knockoff reminds me of sumptuary laws. Ostensibly intended to preserve the balance of trade by preventing people from buying expensive imported textiles, their true purpose was to stop the lower classes from getting above themselves by imitating the fashions of the elites. What’s the point of stealing everyone’s money using the tax code and protectionist legal rackets if the victims can buy luxurious knockoffs and still appear to be having just as much fun as you? Kind of spoils it for the elites, after going to so much trouble to put everyone down. Further steps are required.
Anyways, even for copyright supporters as I am to a certain extend, it’s doubtful that fashion design can be tied to an author more than it is to a simple functionality (in which case it could eventually apply for a despicable patent protection of course, but not copyright…).
Nobody can pretend a dress has no other purpose than to display originality… as one would normally hang it on the wall then. On the contrary, the dress will first have to fit the person wearing it, in order to be defined accordingly. One will have to define its properties in relation to a human body. The patterns materials and drawings are merely of secondary nature.
Not a painting: it “decorates” walls and might give warmth to a room, while giving the place a civilized aura too… as a secondary coincidence though.
A painting is still supposedly original, regardless of the surrounding environment. Simply through the pattern it displays one should be able to recognize its author.
Now you can reproduce a painting on a dress, and have that painting initially subject to copyright, but that still does not make fashion design itself (which is here essentially just concerned with the action of printing a drawing on a dress) suitable for copyright
Granting copyright to fashion design would make book reading in front of a green door, a matter of copyright too.
As the empire falls, its swarm of minions look for more and more straws to grasp trying desperately to make themselves and their positions seem relevant.
Just as politicians dread the label “do nothing” more than any other, including hypocrite, liar and thief.
They must “do something” no matter how destructive that something is.
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On the contrary, the dress will first have to fit the person wearing it, in order to be defined accordingly. One will have to define its properties in relation to a human body.
Simply through the pattern it displays one should be able to recognize its author.
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