Fashion Designers Hope That Michelle Obama Gets Them Copyright On Clothing Design

Politics

from the comes-from-all-directions... dept

While there are plenty of legitimate worries that the Obama administration is way too influenced by copyright maximalists, who knew that the battle for ridiculous new copyright laws would start involving the First Lady as well? For years, the fashion industry has been a shining example of an industry where innovation and competition thrives, despite no ability to copyright designs and widespread copying of those designs. However, what’s resulted is a more dynamic and more creative marketplace that has actually increased output and helped enlarge the market. In fact, repeated studies have shown that it’s this lack of intellectual property protection that has made the industry so successful, and that implementing restrictions would actually harm the industry. That’s because the rampant copying has done many good things:

• It helps permeate new designs into the market much faster.
• It creates a defacto market segmentation between “originals” and copies, which actually has increased the value of having an original brand name design.
• It encourages more innovation because designers know that they need to keep coming out with new works to stay on top, rather than relying on their old designs.

And it’s working. The fashion market is highly competitive, very robust, and very, very creative. So it makes no sense at all that anyone should want to add new IP into that market. The purpose of copyright is to encourage new content creation, and anyone would be hard pressed to say that the fashion industry isn’t quite good at constantly churning out tons of new designs. And yet… as with so many case studies about intellectual property, those who are on top often want increased IP protection, not to encourage the creation of new content, but to stamp out competitors and be able to slow down innovation and rest on their laurels.

In other words, the leaders in highly competitive markets often implicitly recognize that IP protection does exactly the opposite of its intended purpose: and they want that. It helps lock them into a leadership position by easing competition, and slowing down the pace at which they need to innovate. So, it should be no surprise that over the years, some top fashion designers have pushed hard for Congress to create a new copyright for fashion designs, despite the total lack of evidence of any need (and, in fact, lots of evidence to the contrary). NY Senator Chuck Schumer has been a big supporter of such a damaging idea, but it hasn’t gone anywhere to date.

Yet, now we find out that many top designers, who have designed dresses for the First Lady, Michelle Obama, are hoping to enlist her help in supporting such legislation. They’re apparently excited that Michelle Obama is known for her fashion sense, and are playing off of that to get more attention. Unfortunately, in the article linked here, the Washington Post’s fashion columnist simply parrots the designers’ false claims about how such copying “harms” the industry, despite the evidence saying exactly the opposite. I guess it’s too much to ask the Post’s fashion columnist to actually understand or research the issue, but it’s unfortunate that these false ideas are being reported as fact, and that the First Lady may get dragged into a battle that would ultimately harm fashion design by establishing protectionism where none is needed.

Filed Under: competition, copyright, fashion design, fashion industry, innovation, michelle obama