Copyright and digital fashion designers: the democratization of authorship? (original) (raw)
Open-Source Philosophy in Fashion Design: Contesting Authorship Conventions and Professionalism
DRS2020: Synergy
This paper investigates open-source fashion approach as a design philosophy and a phenomenon that demonstrates an alternative to the concept of authorship of fashion designers. We argue that the concept contests traditional professionalism in fashion design in today's digitalized, data-driven culture. Investigating opensource philosophy in fashion design as a dimension of professional fashion designers' authorship, the paper presents three case studies with different ways of applying opensource principles to existing fashion design practices. The article builds on multiplecase-study research conducted during 2018-2019. The case studies were analyzed from the perspective of authorship and professionalism. We ask whether, how, why and to what end fashion designers contest the authorial and professional conventions of fashion design. Secondly, we analyze the role of technology in such questioning.
Current Intellectual Property Regimes in the U.S. Fail to Protect Fashion Designs
Journal of Media & Management, 2021
The United States does not offer adequate intellectual property protections for designs within the fashion industry. The quick pace and constantly evolving nature of the fashion industry creates obstacles for designers’ ability to obtain lasting protection in their fashion articles. The intellectual property regimes for trademark, trade dress, patent and copyright will be analyzed in the fashion industry context. These intellectual property regimes in the United States do not adequately protect designers in the fashion industry. Small fashion brands and independent designers are often left unprotected by the copying of their designs. Designers “remain vulnerable to knockoff artists who can steal ideas straight off the runway and produce copies before the originals even hit the stores.” Due to the lack of intellectual property protection for fashion designers in the United States, fashion companies and retailers are able to “steal American designs, make low-quality copies in foreign ...
UCLA Entertainment Law Review, 2019
Author(s): Schroeder, Jared; Kraeplin, Camille | Abstract: Fashion designers have struggled to establish their works as expressions that qualify for copyright protection. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in March 2017 in Star Athletica v. Varsity was less of a victory for fashion designers than it might appear. The Court’s effort to clarify and apply the “separability test” stopped short of providing the clarity needed to protect the works of fashion designers. This Article contends that this confusion can be resolved by conceptualizing fashion designs as forms of art that are often applied to useful objects, rather understanding them as useful items that, if their designs can be conceptually separated from the object, can receive protections.
A Quest towards Fashion Design Protection Model for the Intellectual Property Rights Global Regime
International Journal for Research in Applied Sciences and Biotechnology, 2018
The aim is to develop a comprehensive fashion design protection (FDP) model based on the intellectual property rights (IPRs) global regime, recent advances in cutting-edge digital technologies, and anti-counterfeiting treaty agreement (ACTA) policies to combat piracy and counterfeiting. The research methodology utilizes literature review, and relevant databases analytics that facilitates broad keywords search, and identifies high-quality peer-reviewed papers to obtain a perspective on the current situation of IPRs globally for smart fashion wearables (SFW). This conceptual research enriches four main contributions creating invaluable knowledge in the literature : (i) describes the correlation between innovation, intellectual capital (IC), intellectual property (IP), piracy, and counterfeiting, (ii) introduction of three recent advances in cutting-edge digital technologies (smart monitoring system, smart traceability system and 4D printing) that offer on/offline adequate protection to combat piracy and counterfeiting, (iii) a multi-pronged strategy is developed to introduce a comprehensive model that integrates the IPRs classifications (Trademark, Trade dress, Copyright, Patent, Industrial Design, Sui Generis, and Trade Secrets), ACTA enforcement principles, three advanced technology systems to attain vigorous IPRs protection for the fashion industry globally, and (iv) demonstrates the FDP model to serve as an quintessential educational framework for academia, practice guide for fashion industry practitioners, policy makers, IP law practitioners, technology developers and non-profit organizations (NPOs).
Fashion Design and Intellectual Property Rights an Indian Perspective
NIScPR-CSIR, India, 2021
IP protection to fashion design is in a transition phase due to the uncertainties as to the protection and the awareness of the same among fashion designers. In addition to this, there is a significant overlapping of the Design Act, 2000 and the Copyright Act, 1957, when it comes to protecting design. The filing trends of design is not categorically analysed backed by a viable approach to promote design protection. Against this background, the present article is an attempt to locate various issues involved in the protection of fashion design, covering its evolution, available, protections, overlapping of relevant legislations, design piracy and undertake an analysis of the recent filing trends in fashion design domain and possible suggestions.
The History and Principles of American Copyright Protection for Fashion Design: On 'Originality'
Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law, 2015
As discussed in the previous installment of this five-part series, A Strange Centennial, lawyers and non-lawyers alike have often parroted the refrain that U.S. copyright does not apply to articles of fashion design. The American legal system’s actual treatment of fashion articles is far more nuanced. If pressed for an accurate generalization, one might reasonably state that certain components of fashion design are copyright-eligible, but even those elements tend to receive less consistent and robust protection than that accorded to most other types of “artistic” or “expressive” works under the law. The main objective of A Strange Centennial was to shed light on the evolution of popular and judicial thinking about the conceivability of copyright protection under U.S. law as an appropriate vehicle for asserting exclusive rights over works of fashion design. An examination of the resulting doctrinal and rhetorical innovations in fashion-related copyright litigation from the late Ninet...
2023
The creative professional activity of graphic designers usually involves the creation of design objects that visualize information with the aim of its subsequent public distribution. In connection with this, the task arisesto form a clear position for future graphic designers during their training in higher education institutions regarding the observance of copyright and related rights (Ridgley et al., 2020). Future graphic designers must not only respect copyright when using visual elements but also understand the mechanisms of copyright protection for their works. Considering the thesis that it is impossible to create new unique things in the modern world since we all exist in a single world, are under social influences, and when creating subjective or partially new objects, the graphic designer uses sources of inspiration as starting points in the generation of ideas, synthesis of visual elements, it is essential to pay attention to the integrity of their use and take responsibility for the design result. In the same way, both customers of design objects and representatives of businesses that use the projects for profit should be responsible. Results. The task set before teachers of higher education institutions regarding the purposeful formation of students' ethical and legal attitudes to the use of visual elements in project activities can be solved in different ways (Borysova, 2023; Halak & El-Hajjar, 2019). It should be noted that among them, the discussion of simulated and real situations, taking into account certain aspects of integrity during practical classes in specialized disciplines and
2022
It has been argued that the file-sharing dimension of the internet undermines the intellectual property rights of creative producers. By simply clicking a button, creative works such as music, films, books and fashion designs can be accessed, used and distributed free-of-charge via digital media platforms. This has led to what some writers termed copyfights between those that support the unrestricted sharing of creative works over the internet, and those who support the protection of the copyright of creative producers on the internet. This problem continues to dog creative producers in the knowledge economy. This article examines how this problem has affected fashion designers as creative producers, and how they have managed it. It argues that fashion designers have effectively leveraged and optimized the file-sharing dimension of the internet, and concludes that the internet is a strategic imperative for fashion designers and perhaps for every creative worker in the digital era.
Design protection and copyright issues for small textile firms
Design Studies, 1998
T he textile industry is currently the fifth largest industrial sector in the UK, despite its fragmentation into many specialist and diverse activities such as haute couture, furnishing fabrics and synthetic fibre production 1. It is, however, constantly in flux, reacting to fashion, design and commercial changes on a global scale. The growing importance of design in textiles manufacture has been apparent in the UK during the whole of the post war period so much so that one analysis claims that the UK has the largest number of educational and training courses in textile and apparel design, per capita, in the world 2. While the education of designers has been evolving, there has also been a developing career structure for designers in UK and foreign textile firms and a parallel, expanding
The Law, Culture, and Economics of Fashion
2009
Fashion is one of the world's most important creative industries. As the most immediate visible marker of self-presentation, fashion creates vocabularies for self-expression that relate individuals to society. Despite being the core of fashion and legally protected in Europe, fashion design lacks protection against copying under U.S. intellectual property law. This Article frames the debate over whether to provide protection to fashion design within a reflection on the cultural dynamics of innovation as a social practice. The desire to be in fashion-most visibly manifested in the practice of dress-captures a significant aspect of social life, characterized by both the pull of continuity with others and the push of innovation toward the new. We explain what is at stake economically and culturally in providing legal protection for original designs, and why a protection against close copies only is the proper way to proceed. We offer a model of fashion consumption and production that emphasizes the complementary roles of individual differentiation and shared participation in trends. Our analysis reveals that the current legal regime, which protects trademarks but not fashion designs from copying, distorts innovation in fashion away from this expressive aspect and toward status and luxury aspects. The dynamics of fashion lend insight into dynamics of innovation more broadly, in areas where consumption is also expressive. We emphasize that the line between close copying and remixing represents an often underappreciated but promising direction for intellectual property today.
Journal of Programming Languages, 2017
In today’s world where the process of development and the industry is evolving more rapidly than expected, the legal notions are going forward on their compliance in line with these developments. The increasing development of intellectual property rights and their samples is an example of this change. One of the most important issues and instances of this tendency in legal rights is associated with fashion productions and creations. France, as one of the greatest leading country in fashion industry since long time ago, has legally protected the dress and beautiful creations in the intellectual property rules and in the different time periods, under the various titles, including the drawings and models rights, industrial property rights, literary and artistic property rights. French jurisprudence has broadly interpreted the concept of the fashion industry and consequently, the dress and beauty creations that have evolved not only the goods, but all parties involved in the production ...