Why Computer Companies Should Copy The Fashion Industry
from the unfashionable-ideas dept
Techdirt has had many posts pointing out that the huge and vibrant fashion industry is a perfect demonstration that you don't need monopolies to succeed, and that bringing in copyright for clothes and accessories now would be positively harmful. One of the people who's been making that point for years is Kal Raustiala (co-author of this month's Techdirt book club choice, The Knockoff Economy). NPR Books has just posted a short interview with him that succinctly explains why copyright would be a disaster for the fashion industry. Here are a couple of the key points.
For a start, Raustiala explains why copying is so good for the fashion world:
fashion relies on trends, and trends rely on copying. So you can think of copying as a turbocharger that spins the fashion cycle faster, so things come into fashion faster, they go out of fashion faster, and that makes fashion designers want to come up with something new because we want something new.
That's the familiar argument that copying helps to drive innovation. But copying does something even more important: it helps define what exactly is fashionable.
copying helps condense the market into something that consumers can understand, so people want to follow trends, they want to be able to dress in a way that's in style; they have to understand that.
That is, without copying, the sense of what is fashionable right now would be diminished, leading to a fractured fashion market. By amplifying and clarifying trends, copying also widens the market for the season's current fashions.
Raustiala makes an good point about why it's unusual to apply for design patents -- the obvious "protection" here:
it's unusual to do that because, 1) it's very expensive to get a patent, and 2) patents require a standard of novelty and originality that's often hard to reach in the fashion industry, where many things are reworkings of previous things.
That's a recognition that the fashion industry is a kind of commons, with designers continually drawing on and contributing back to that pool of creativity. It means that other fashion houses can then build on those common ideas, which results in more creativity, and more choices for consumers.
Exactly the same kind of borrowing takes place elsewhere, especially in the computer field. But instead of accepting that fact, companies like Apple and Samsung have opted for an all-or-nothing legal strategy that tries to enclose parts of the knowledge commons through the granting of temporary monopolies on ideas and designs. The result is a huge waste of time and money, whose chief outcome is likely to be less consumer choice as models are blocked or withdrawn. The contrast with the world of fashion is painful.
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Filed Under: copying, fashion, kal raustiala
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Fashion only advances when one of the big players does something different or hits a new direction for others to copy. If everyone was copying, they would go nowhere... really, really fast.
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That every one else then copies those advances only increases the value of being the one who set that trend while at the same time forcing the trend setters to move on and innovate or end up losing that title.
Apple was granted huge value in being the first to market and in being the ones who set some current trends of design. Now instead of having to put work in to moving that design and trends forward they are just rehashing the same ideas while trying to stop any one competing and forcing them to move on.
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in being the first to market ... with rounded corners
But they weren't first and, so far, have still been given the advantage solely based upon a geometric shape. This level of stupidity would be minuscule compared to what would certainly occur in the fashion IP circus.
Apparently, there is a "first to whine" doctrine in play.
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Fashion moves fanfiction?
Fashion moves final fantasy?
Fashion moves fucking demonic spiders?
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"Trendy" vs. "useful"
As stated in the article the fashion world works around (and follows) trends. The computer world does it too in some cases (entertainment apps, videogames, etc.) but there are also parts in the computer world where trends play a smaller role. Some software should rather be "useful" than "trendy". To give a simple example: You'd rather buy the software which enables you to perform a certain task with 3 clicks instead of 7.
Don't misundestand me. I still think the computer world would benefit if the slowing mechanisms named "patent" and "copyright" weren't in place - but for different reasons.
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Re: "Trendy" vs. "useful"
It only highlights the fact that the patent system is broken.
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Re: "Trendy" vs. "useful"
I think you might be underestimating the "trendiness" of the computer world. Trends drive everything, from what programming languages are dominant to hardware selection, to even the OS.
These trends take place in a constrained environment (as all trends do), and one of those constraints is usefulness, but I literally can't think of a single aspect of the computer industry where trends aren't a major influence.
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TFTFY
companies like Apple, who also forces Samsung to follow suite, have opted for an all-or-nothing legal strategy that tries
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Re: TFTFY
I would like to add that Apple is, once again, ahead of the curve here. Cheap commodity hardware is going to wreck some business models. Apple has recognized that a litigation based business model is the future. Some others still have not seen the writing on the wall yet and still believe they can sell expensive hardware or expensive operating systems.
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If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants
But where Apple have broken the system is then suing the bejesus out of everyone else who tries to innovate on their innovations even when they did not invent the original idea.
Anyone out there remember Apple successfully suing GEM in the 80's over WIMP GUI's and also attempting to sue MS over Windows but failing as MS had the resources to fight back? (The GUI was developed at Xerox PARC in the 70’s, read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_GUI for the full story.)
GEM faded and I am sure that losing to Apple did not help and I wonder what would have happened if MS had not had the resources to fight back?
I know other tec companies sue as well but it seems to me that many of these are in response to Apple’s aggressive behaviour.
What Apple should be doing is innovating, seeing what the competition comes up with and then innovate their next device to be better than that.
As Newton said “If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants [sic].”
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Re: If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants
Actually, the first modern-style windowed GUI was developed by the Air Force in the '50s.
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We need tailored laws, like those currently before congress, that protect these small players. Currently, trade mark laws are very very strong and this is what fashion designers rely on. Design rights in the USA at least, are difficult to obtain. Small designers that don't have the brand power just simply can't compete when more well known brands copy eir designs.
The IDPA currently before congress will award automatic copyright protection for novel fashion designs for a period of three years. This is very short and I think, should not negatively impact upon trend making because it would also be quite difficult to infringe.
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So go on, tell us here how it would quite difficult to infringe on copyrights when it comes to fashion.
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Load of horse shit. If the site infringes, then the site infringes, you don't. You only infringe if you knowingly copy what is on that website and keep it.
Where do you get this garbage from?
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This cycle of whining to Uncle Sam until he caves in will continue over and over again. And since fashion copyright would continue to lag behind other copyrights, they will whine that much harder! Fast forward to modern day. Now they would be demanding that fashion copyright should be "harmonized" with all other forms of IP. Yep, 70 years after death!
Given the history of copyright, it would obviously be better to not open that "pandora's box" again, given that we already know what's inside.
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Tell me more about how the world leader in fasion(a country without fashion copyright) should copy the losers who do have fashion copyright? How would that advance fashion when we're already the most advanced without fashion copyright?
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Fast technology generation...
That being said there's certainly a plethora of valid arguments for loosening up the system and shortening the span of the lockdowns. Simply doing that would have an amazing impact on the market. *shrug*
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2) patents require a standard of novelty and originality that's often hard to reach in the fashion industry, where many things are reworkings of previous things.
I'm sorry that I don't have the time to cite it, but I know there have been stories, some posted here, that talk about how patent examiners are overloaded. If it is true, then submitting a design patent, no matter how unsuitable, might work actually work in the submitters favor. If for nothing then the pressure to approve them for the sake of proving how "innovative" we are in the US.
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Fashion Consulting on Computers
Critical thinking is not industry specific, but sometimes being an expert within one industry leads to the cognitive trap where being an expert conditions you to miss things an outsider would see quickly. This is not a knock on experts, every person falls into this trap at some point in their life. Thats where other people are key, the best fashion person and the best computer person may not think they have something to offer the other, but get them in a room and the results could be pretty interesting.
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compared to fashion?
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