Fashion: Art or Craft?

[mcroft]

According to ParticleMan (a nice guy I haven't ever met), there's a move afoot to change the status of "Fashion" from a craft to an art, which really means there's an attempt by the fashion industry to secure for themselves the benefits of copyright protection for the design of clothing.

It's an interesting argument, and there is certainly deceptive trade going on in copies of clothing and there's also clearly a lot of borrowing between designers. But copyright? I'm not convinced. ParticleMan is a law student who wants to go into copyright law, and he is.

P-Man says "The creator is entitled to protection of the unique expression of an idea (though not the idea itself)."

Anyone here have any thoughts (on this. Opinions on the Battle of Balaclava are not relevant...)?

Comments

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Hmm. There are only so many ways to make say, a plain black T-shirt, or your basic pair of jeans. Would existing styles be the public domain?

[drelmo.livejournal.com]

Copyright exists as an incentivizer for the creation of useful arts and sciences. Fashion does not appear to lack incentive to create. Indeed, since the imposition of copyright would be used to stifle competitors in the market in which fashion is a commodity, it's quite arguably not in the public interest.

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I get the idea that this is a non-problem in search of a cash payout option.

I'm still trying to differentiate fashion from upholstery for purposes of protection here.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Gluing ugly shit to a sheathe dress, ripping some holes in the parts that don't have ugly shit on them, and sewing the resulting abortion onto an anorexic teenager in heavy eye makeup is totally art.

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

I was going for "covering an overstuffed body with decorative cloth to smooth out the lumps and make it look more appealing", but your example works, too.

It occurred to me that if they do get copyright protection, they may drive the Singer corporation out of business as a manufacturer of a device for circumventing copyright.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

I believe sewing machines would still have substantial non-infringing uses.

If you outlaw sewing machines, only outlaws (and my Mom) will have sewing machines!

snarky brujah moment

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

Property is theft.

Charge of the Light Luvrhino

[luvrhino.livejournal.com]

I think that the lack of foresight by the Russians' in establishing significant land fortifications and, more importantly, their technological disadvantage (for they had not the minié rifle) is the root of why the battle of Inkerman went the Allies way despite their numerical disadvantage. Moreover, this battle put to rest any doubt what was to be the ultimate outcome of the Crimean War.

On a tactical level, one can't certainly shouldn't underestimate the lack of cohesion and communication on the Russians part for why their attack failed. However, on a overall strategic level it would not make a difference, for the Allies would have rallied even had the Russians carried the day.

[kodi]

It sounds like ParticleMan is saying, "If we allow fashion designs to be copyrighted, then those copyrights are being violated, therefore we must allow them to be copyrighted."

I don't think it's a good idea, but I'm having a hard time figuring out why. Assuming that full copyright protection is afforded to all fashion designs, though, wouldn't photographs of people wearing designs created in the past century be derivative works?

[olofd.livejournal.com]

Heh. His main argument seems to be that counterfeit clothing should be illegal. Isn't it already? Surely brand lables are copyrighted and trademarked already, and I guess you could also jail the counterfeiters for fraud in most legislations.

The only result of this kind of legislation would be more lawsuits and more lawyers. That is totally unproductive.

(As for copyright law on the whole, I think it needs to be loosened *a lot*. The "70 years after the creator's death" rule for instance, will kill a lot of 20th century culture, IMO.)

arrr....

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

Speaking of which... how is the Pirate Party doing in Swedish politics :-)

Re: arrr....

[olofd.livejournal.com]

The election is today. As far as I can tell the Pirate party will get around 1% of the votes, which is not many enough to get into the parliment. But this election is a thriller: the right wing coalition and the left wing coalition are very very close.