Lessons from fashion's free culture

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Copying Is Not Theft 20100408 18:10

• 2010.08.06 Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html

... In the fashion industry there's very little intellectual property protection. They have trademark protection, but no copyright protection, and no patent protection to speak of. All they have really is trademark protection. And so it means that anybody could copy any garment on any person in this room and sell it as their own design. The only thing that they can't copy is the actual trademark label within that piece of apparel. That's one reason you see logos splattered all over these products. It's because it's a lot harder for knock-off artists to knock off these designs because they can't knock off the logo...

...Now, the reason for this, the reason that the fashion industry doesn't have any copyright protection is because the courts decided long ago that apparel is too utilitarian to qualify for copyright protection. They didn't want a handful of designers owning the seminal building blocks of our clothing. And then everybody else would have to license this cuff or this sleeve because Joe Blow owns it. But too utilitarian?...

...What I'm going to argue today is that, because there is no copyright protection in the fashion industry, fashion designers have actually been able to elevate utilitarian design, things to cover our naked bodies, into something we consider art. Because there's no copyright protection in this industry, there's a very open and creative ecology of creativity.(Johanna Blakley)

... it's not just the fashion industry that doesn't have copyright protection. There's a bunch of other industries that don't have copyright protection including the food industry. You cannot copyright a recipe because it's a set of instructions, it's fact. And you cannot copyright the look and feel of even the most unique dish. Same with automobiles. It doesn't matter how wacky they look or how cool they look, you cannot copyright the sculptural design. It's a utilitarian article, that's why. Same with furniture. It's too utilitarian. Magic tricks, I think they're instructions, sort of like recipes. No copyright protection. Hairdos, no copyright protection. Open-source software, these guys decided they didn't want copyright protection. They thought it'd be more innovative without it. It's really hard to get copyright for databases. Tattoo artists, they don't want it; it's not cool. They share their designs Jokes, no copyright protection. Fireworks displays. The rules of games. The smell of perfume, no. And some of these industries may seem sort of marginal to you, but these are the gross sales for low I.P. industries, industries with very little copyright protection.(Johanna Blakley)