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Planet Money T-Shirt Plans Include Recognizing That Copying Works For Fashion
from the good-for-them dept
Earlier this year, we wrote about how the NPR podcast Planet Money was planning to go into the t-shirt business to better understand the whole process of creating a small clothing retail operation, top to bottom. The idea was to create high quality t-shirts that people would actually want (and pay a premium for), rather than the typical cheapo t-shirts. I had been wondering what happened to that plan, because the Planet Money team hadn't mentioned it in a while, but they're finally back to discussing it, and the latest podcast, amazingly, hits on another topic we talk about frequently: how copying helps the fashion industry.
Unfortunately, the Planet Money folks refer to it as "stealing," even as they talk to a bunch of folks who explain how copying is what really helps the industry thrive. They discuss the awful new fashion copyright bill, and how it's likely to have seriously bad consequences for the industry and for consumers, noting even, that many economists recognize that intellectual property is not a good solution in many markets. If a market can thrive and be competitive without intellectual property, adding such monopolies to the mix can be a disaster, leading to greater employment for lawyers, but harm to everyone else. They describe how having something like a fashion copyright will make it so that the industry needs to "clear" pretty much everything they do with the lawyers first. That means things will be a lot more expensive, and anything that can't be "cleared" may never get made.
It may not be "new" to folks around here, who have known all this for years, but it's nice to see these ideas spreading.
Unfortunately, the Planet Money folks refer to it as "stealing," even as they talk to a bunch of folks who explain how copying is what really helps the industry thrive. They discuss the awful new fashion copyright bill, and how it's likely to have seriously bad consequences for the industry and for consumers, noting even, that many economists recognize that intellectual property is not a good solution in many markets. If a market can thrive and be competitive without intellectual property, adding such monopolies to the mix can be a disaster, leading to greater employment for lawyers, but harm to everyone else. They describe how having something like a fashion copyright will make it so that the industry needs to "clear" pretty much everything they do with the lawyers first. That means things will be a lot more expensive, and anything that can't be "cleared" may never get made.
It may not be "new" to folks around here, who have known all this for years, but it's nice to see these ideas spreading.
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On the other hand
Because young fashion designers can't exactly protect themselves from that type of copying.
http://onthemedia.org/transcripts/2010/10/08/05
f'r instance:
In other words, they need laws to prop up old business models. They don't need to change, the law and the people need to change. And if they can't get protected, people will simply stop creating new things. *rolls eyes*
I guess, On the Media needs to get the Planet Money guys on?
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Re: On the other hand
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Wasn’t It Picasso Who Said ...
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Exactly what we need.
When the revenue is packaged as a royalty, the industry can use "Double Irish" and "Dutch Sandwich" tax evasion strategies as long as the money stays off-shore, thereby avoiding repatriation of the funds, making it ineligible to be taxed.
Yay American Businesses!
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Hearing of this Planet Money article sent me back to those middle school days. Those movies are one of the many ways I think our schools have lost ground in explaining basic economic and civic theories to this generation.
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Excuse me, your honor?
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Re:
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Ten comments in, and nobody?
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Re:
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Re:
I hate it when English nouns a verb. *grin*
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Extraneous character in blog post.
:)
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