As I am getting older, my affinity for shoes and bags is growing with my years. It is not necessarily the name, but the style and the feel, the look of bags and shoes that draw me to spend more and more on fashion. I spend time flipping through catalogues and websites, walking through stores, just appreciating the things I will never own for the financial burden of a shoe and bag obsession has caused a dip in my credit at a young age. However, the abundance of knock-off's for name brands, being sold at much more affordable prices, pose an obvious threat to the fashion aesthete. Just because they look the same, are they same? Who would know? Is the quality the same? The color? Because one brand creates a cute patent leather pump with a rounded toe, and soon after another is selling a shockingly similar shoe, has there been an instance of fashion fraud? Where are the fashion police, the crusaders of all things good and just? Who says what can be determined as having artistic integrity and or intellectual creativity? The moment an idea comes to one's mind, should they file for some sort of protection? The thought process and intellectual property law forever obscure the lines for all concerned about legal protection. Regardless of the medium, intellectual property law is a dynamic field and asks its noble followers to help untangle the messy web of ambiguity. Where do our thoughts and individual creativity meet at the crossroads of copyright and protection? In the fashion industry, one of the world's fastest growing entities as well as large supplier of creative material, intellectual property law and copyright are a new development in the protection of designs and details, sweaters and stitching. Whether in sketch form or in skirt, from the drawing board to the boardroom, fashion copyright is complicated. Can it be protected? When does an instance of 'substantial similarity' become imitation or worse, chargeable theft? Can the line be drawn? If copyright law is extended to include protection for fashion design, will the world of fashion be forever affected? The blurriness in the fashion design industry resulting from the almost counterintuitive cycle of fashion profits spurred by piracy makes it incredibly difficult to decide. Ultimately, copyright protection for fashion design is necessary and without protection, piracy will continue to hinder the progress of creativity and production as well as cause a discontinuity in what can be considered organic artistic thought.

Raustiala, Kal and Christopher Sprigman. The Piracy Paradox: Innovation and Intellectual Property in Fashion Design. Research Paper No. 06-04.     UCLA School of Law. January 2006. http://ssrn.com/abstract=878401.

 

This long paper was written by Karl Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman. Ninety pages in its entirety, it is a thesis on IP law and Fashion Design. This paper is perhaps the most important piece on IP and Fashion Design to come out recently. The essay opens with a strong paragraph, the authors write the following.

"Advocates
for strong intellectual property (IP) protections note that scientific and technological
innovations, as well as music, books, and other literary and artistic works, are often
difficult to create but easy to copy. Absent IP rights, they argue, copyists will free-ride
on the efforts of creators, discouraging future investments in new inventions and
creations. In short, copying stifles innovation."

This idea that "copying stifles innovation," is not new and not only limited to Fashion Design. The same proverb applies neatly to writing, music, art, dance, film, anything that stirs the creative. The authors continue and say though trademarks are well protected, copying of designs are everywhere. The fact that the fashion design industry continues to put out new designs and accessories at an incredibly fast pace and seem unaffected by the copying defies what the authors call "standard IP theory." " The standard theory of IP rights predicts that extensive copying will destroy the incentive for new innovation. Yet, fashion firms continue to innovate at a rapid clip, precisely the opposite behavior of that predicted by the standard theory."

The sources cited in the paper are both common and uncommon, clearly related to fashion design and copyright while others take a more general role in explaining the place of public domain and free thoughts. The paper also shoes some pictures of examples of what would be copyright infringement and how it differs from trademarks. The authors continue to explain thoroughly the place of IP in fashion design and instances where copyright protection would have been beneficial. The paper also plays its own devil's advocate, denyin it of copyright protection, claiming, if the fashion design industry is so profitable now, why protect it? The continue and talk about the fashion cycle, the thought process to the pen, the pen to the paper, the paper to the catwalk, and then to closets around the world.

They come to a close, discussing how can fashion not be ubiquitious when all magazines do is analyze what is the hottest boot this season or the way to wear layers without looking like you are in hiding. "Indeed, IP law fails to protect the
core of fashion, the design. Despite this lack of protection, the fashion industry continues
to create new designs on a regular basis. The lack of copyright protection for fashion
designs has not deterred investment in the industry. Nor has it reduced innovation in
designs, which are plentiful each season. Fashion plainly provides an interesting and
important challenge to IP orthodoxy."

This paper is incredibly important to anyone researching copryight in any medium. Incredibly well written and supported clearly with pertinent sources, the paper helps to explain why the lack of IP protection in certain areas exists and how, if ever, fashion could be protected by IP law. The paper is very important as support for my thesis. It talks about the fashion-knockoff cycle and the inability to draw the line between piracy and authenticity. This paper is heavy on defining different processes in the fashion world and helps to clarify the important role processes play in the one-day inclusion of fashion design into copyright legislature.