Why the absence of copyright is good for fashion

Here's Johanna Blakley from USC's Ready to Share project describing how the lack of copyright restrictions on fashion has improved the field -- everybody has to constantly invent, everybody can use anything from the fashion world as the basis for invention, and the result is a never-ending (and highly profitable) cycle of innovation.

Johanna Blakely: Lessons from fashion's free culture (via /.)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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kathleen fasanella

I’m also opposed to the DPPA but for less obvious reasons. The legal costs to independents would prevent them from ever entering the field. They can scarcely pay for fabric and sewing much less legal fees.

Sure there’s some gaps in Blakley’s presentation but it’s interesting nonetheless. I agree public discussion over copying is frequently confused with pirating and it muddles things too much.

Point being, the barre to entry for film and music piracy is much much lower than the cost of OEM auto part piracy. Entry barriers to each respectively could explain why some industries are higher IP. High costs are a barrier meaning less IP protections are necessary.
Anonymous

To me this argument is flawed. On the surface it sounds good, but when I apply the argument to some other creative fields it doesn’t hold up.

For example, in photography, film or painting; I can create an image and apply a copyright to it. In doing so I have protected my original creation from being copied. That is, no one can come along and duplicate my created image and sell or use it without my permission. That DOES NOT mean that they can’t go out and take a photograph of the same same object at the same time of day and try and replicate my image. I also am legally allowed to sit down and paint my own copy of any famous artwork. It is only illegal if I try to pass off my copy as not being my creation. Same goes for film or most other creative endeavors. While they may produce an image that is very much like mine (using the same source or inspiration) their work will not be an exact copy of mine and therefore not a violation of copyright. This to me is a better comparison to the original/knock-off argument Ms. Blakley makes.

I could very well be wrong here (I am definitely NOT IP expert) but I would think that the creation of a collar or other construction technique that she mentions in passing can’t be copyrighted due to the fact that copyright covers creative expression where the construction but would be more of a patent issue. Copyright would cover the artistic design of a piece of clothing and a knockoff being not an exact match and created completely independently from the original would be fair game.

Just me 2 cents.
Anonymous

Let me add this link:
http://www.againstmonopoly.com/
in which some economists explain why absence of copyright is good genrally for everything
Corrado
turn_self_off

makes me think that one element that ended up giving copyright its 50+ year span, was the french want to allow a creator to control how his “name” was used. That is, avoiding issues like wagner operas being linked to certain political groups and so resulting in people thinking that wagner supported said political ideas (never mind that one was dead long before the other came into being).

so basically a kind of creators trademark. That is, sure you can recreate steam boat willie. But you cant call it walt disney’s steam boat willie.
- moose_hp
  
  Is it still considered a Godwin if it is just heavily imply it instead of saying it openly?
  - IronEdithKidd
    
    Yes. I’m surprised there wasn’t some reference to Hugo Boss in there. This is a fashion thread, after all. If you’re going to Godwin, a little effort to make it relevant to the thread would be appreciated.
  - turn_self_off
    
    if you can think of a different example where a creators name have become colored by association, feel free to present it.
Anonymous

I’d call fashion a cycle of design madnees, not necessarily innovation.
Anonymous

The conception of intellectual property is quite different between the French and the American. I’m not specialist so I may not be very precise, but first there is a deep difference between patented designs and art.

For Art, the artist holds a right on his work, even after it has been sold. It cannot be modified or reproduced without his conscent. That means for example that you cannot modify a building without the architect conscent or the conscent of his inheritors.

Now regarding the video of Johana Blakley, I felt she was very unbalanced about her subject. The absence of copyright and the only existence of trademark is all positive, really ? The fact is that luxury have become more and more based of trademarks really leading to vulgar displays of brands like Louis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabbana or Gucci. Often it is difficult to find unbranded piece of garnment of quality. I don’t feel at all that quality and originally are the main drivers of this market.

Back to the example she took, on the other side of the pound, she put the example of books. The fact is that in France, the book market is not failing at all. Even if it’s a highly regulated, highly protected market. In fact the price of book is unique (the maximum discount allowed is 5% accross the crountry) after 20 years of such a policy, the number of independant libraries, publichers and the number of book published remain very high. So my own conclusion would be that the music market crash may be related to something else than just transition to on-line (without physical support)

My quick guess :
- inconsistant pricing policy.
- concentration on the industry;
- disparition of independant resellers (for an industry based on cultural diversity)
- the convertion from vinyl to CD and the making of a music libray finished (why buying a lot of new music when you already own thousand of tracks)
- spending budget of key markets (teenagers) to other categories of spending (cellphones, electronic gadgets)

My opinon are also that the movie and the sofware (copyrighted) industry are not in crisis. They are winning about piracy and copycats but at the end they are still hudge markets in growth.

My feelings about TED conferences are often the same : oversimplification of complex issues leading to mis-conception.

Guillaume
- manicbassman
  
  “Anon â€¢ #4 â€¢ 4:32 AM Wednesday, May 26, 2010 â€¢ Reply
  
  My opinon are also that the movie and the sofware (copyrighted) industry are not in crisis. They are winning about piracy and copycats but at the end they are still hudge markets in growth.”
  
  Linux relies heavily on copyright as well… but uses it as a form of copyleft where the right to copy and modify is passed on to the user provide he/she abides by the terms of the license, which is that any improvements to the code are made available back to everybody else…
  
  this is why Microsoft hates it so much as they can’t lift chunks of code and use them themselves without contributing the improvements/changes back to the pool…
Anonymous

If in order to copy music, it had to be recreated by different people playing instruments and recording it, I think that could be really interesting.
Julien Couvreur

Copyright and patent laws should be repealed wholesale, not just in the fashion industry (where they are ineffective anyways).

The whole concept of applying the property approach to intangibles which are non-rivalrous (we can both use the same idea at a given moment in ways we desire, whereas we cannot both be riding the bike) is like trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

Copyright and patent laws create artificial scarcity which does not reflect the metaphysical nature of the things being protected.
Some things have natural scarcity (once the bike is created, there are conflicts for its use) and other things don’t (once an idea is produced, my learning the idea does not prevent other people learning the idea).
loonquawl

DVF ripped off a smaller label? Well. Kinda yes, but no, actually. DVF remixed a jacket(new pattern, slightly different cut), totally legit under the current laws, a design made by a smaller label (Mercy) in Canada. DVF then proceeded to sell the jacket for 1000$ (more than the smaller label wanted – 300$), with greater success, due to their greater reach. As the proprietor of DVF, hilariously named DVF, learned of the ripoff by one of her designers(the smaller label saw the new design, and contacted DVF), she compensated the smaller label financially, although there was no legal need to do so, only in accordance with the laws she would like to see enacted. So she’s fighting for a law to protect designers (with the law in place, they would have had a legal foothold to get compensation, in the current situation it was sheer luck to be up against someone honest enough to fess up to it.

To the people arguing they would never have had the money to sue under the future laws: There is a division of powers – judiciary, legislative and executive. Now with a law not being brought into effect because of financial imbalance of the parties involved – which of the three is messed up, and why criticize the other?
loonquawl

gross sales for non-copyrighted stuff = huge

copyright protection = bad for business

logic behind this = incredibly inane
getjustin

Matt Mason wrote an awesome book called the Pirate’s Dilemma about how piracy shouldn’t be seen as a threat, but rather a market force and he uses fashion as a perfect example. Really interesting read.

http://thepiratesdilemma.com/about-the-book

I’m not realizing this looks like astroturfing. It’s not. Swear. Just a great book about how piracy can be a good thing.
- mojojohanna
  
  Thanks for the tip! Can’t wait to read this . . .
millionpoems

I understand down to my mirror neurons the arguments against patents and copyright… but isn’t trademark categorically different? That is, I’m not readily seeing how a trademark speculator could block innovative competition, without actually demonstrating a commitment to a given trademark.

Sincerely,
The Bluth Banana Grabber
- mojojohanna
  
  Trademark is a form of intellectual property but I agree — it does seem fundamentally different from patent & copyright. Trademark has to do with owning a name & a reputation *for* particular types of products. As digital technology unravels the logic of copyright, I wonder if creative industries will become more aggressive about protecting their reputations than the products that they make.
- millionpoems
  
  Or do I just need to find my copy of No Logo.
technogeek

As noted in the comments on YouTube, the problem is that fashion is often about the brand name, NOT about the actual product. People will pay a hefty surcharge simply to be able to say they have “the original”.

If you’re selling a product where “first-mover advantage” is that high, and where folks copying you occurs visibly and adds to your brand reputation thus further enhancing that advantage, it’s a lot easier to leave things loosey-goosey. When you’re dealing with products which are viewed as commodities, or with communities that don’t have any emotional attachment to a particular brand…

Example closer to where Cory lives: The original unauthorized US edition of Lord Of The Rings. “Those who approve of courtesy, at least, to living authors” — and who realized the first was pirated — waited for the authorized edition, or perhaps re-bought when the authorized edition became available. But most folks honestly didn’t care all that much. (In fact, I own both — I picked up the unauthorized paperbacks used just because I wanted them as an illustration — and I’ve actually resolved a typo in my copy of the authorized edition by comparing that sentence with the unauthorized.)

Yes, it’s worth looking at alternative market models, and fashion is certainly one such. But it’s also worth looking deeply at WHY they work before assuming they can be easily generalized.

(And, yes, I agree that the freedom to remix is a wonderful spur to invention. The question, always, is how to balance that against paying creators and distributors enough that they make those inventions available to the rest of us.)
Miss Jess

YES YES YES. This was a great lecture. All I can say, as an apparel designer-entrepreneur, is DOWN WITH THE DESIGN PIRACY PROHIBITION ACT! Luckily, Congress has shut it down thrice already, but the CFDA is still pushing for one more go’round. The big-time designers of the CFDA are pretty hypocritical and disgusting when it comes to knocking off smaller designers’ work (*cough* CFDA President Diane Von Furstenberg *cough*), so even more reason to be against this sort of legislation that will only benefit them (and stifle us little, independent peeps). Go HERE to learn more about fighting the good (low-IP) fight in fashion.
- mojojohanna
  
  Thanks so much for your post! I thought for sure that legislation had gone down in flames (thus my comment in the TED talk). I must check in with my peeps on the Hill . . .
ausPPC

I’m yet to hear a pro-copyright argument as coherent as that – but who needs coherence when you can just pull laws outta your butt?
Grrrrrrrr8

Very interesting talk about the fashion industry and the value of a lack of copyright. However, she glosses over a LOT in the end when she generalizes.

The graph that showed the sizes of industry is hugely misleading. Food and automobiles dwarfed film, big surprise. It’s also bizarre to compare them since we need to eat and drive every day (or ride a bike, yay!) while movies are hardly a necessity.

Also, furniture may not have a copyright, but there are trademark disputes. Just look at Alphaville vs. Knoll over Alphaville’s version of the Barcelona chair.

I do agree with a lot of what she says. I’m just disappointed in this presentation.
Anonymous

There is too little rigour in what she has to say here.

That’s my strong belief based on experience of almost three decades. I admit I’m a lawyer.

Yes, there are lots of anomolies, issues, and inconsistencies with copyright, particularly due to the digital tsunami. But its best to discuss them by first being clear on the real facts.