NPR's Morning Edition ran a great piece today on the fashion industry and copyright. Fashion designs are drawn from a rich commons of designs that have come before, remixed by designers who enjoy very little in the way of intellectual property protection, and yet the industry thrives and creativity flourishes.
Francesca Sterlacci is head of the fashion design department at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. She says it's expensive and risky to actually create new designs. It's cheaper and easier to simply knock off successful ones. Typically, Sterlacci says, designers just let the copies go. After all, new designs will come out in a couple of months, and lawsuits are time-consuming, expensive "and you're never really sure whether or not you're going to win," she says.
(Thanks, The Other Michael!)
