Intellectual Property Rights Copynorm And The Fashion Industry

This book traces the development of the fashion industry, providing insight into the business and, in particular, its interrelations with copyright law. The book explores how the greatest haute couture fashion designers also had a sense for business and that their attention to copyright was one of the weapons in protecting their market position. The work also confronts the peculiarities of the fashion industry as a means of demonstrating the importance of intellectual property protection while pointing out the many challenges involved. A central aim is to provide a copyrightability test for fashion goods based on detailed analysis of the legal regulations in the USA and EU countries, specifically Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland. The book will be of interest to researchers and academics working in the areas of Intellectual Property Law, Copyright Law, Business Law, Fashion Law and Design.

Step into the pulsating heart of contemporary fashion law as Volume 11 of the Series of the Center for Design, Fashion, and Advertisement Law (University of Silesia in Katowice) unfolds its pages. With a focus on France, the epitome of haute couture, immerse yourself in the rich tapestry of French copyright law as it interplays with the vibrant world of fashion. From renowned fashion houses to cutting-edge designers, explore captivating case studies that illuminate the intricate dance between creativity and legal protection. Delve deep into the nuances of copyright law, gaining invaluable insights into the legal landscape shaping the future of fashion. Join us on this enlightening expedition as we uncover the legal fabric that weaves together the threads of innovation, culture, and style at the forefront of the fashion universe.

Step into the world where fashion meets law, where innovation intertwines with tradition, and where haute couture unveils its secrets. In the 10th volume of the Series of the Center for Design, Fashion, and Advertisement Law (University of Silesia in Katowice), embark on a journey that delves deep into the long-forgotten haute couture ateliers. From groundbreaking marketing strategies to pioneering legal frameworks, from intricate technical designs to unparalleled branding techniques, this volume uncovers the multifaceted innovations that have shaped the landscape of fashion and beyond. Join us as we explore the intersection of creativity and legality, where every stitch tells a story of ingenuity and inspiration.

Fashion law encompasses a wide variety of issues that concern an article of clothing or a fashion accessory, starting from the moment they are designed and following them through distribution and marketing phases, all the way until they reach the end-user. Contract law, intellectual property, company law, tax law, international trade, and customs law are of fundamental importance in defining this new field of law that is gradually taking shape. This volume focuses on the new frontiers of fashion law, taking into account the various fields that have recently emerged as being of great interest for the entire fashion world: from sustainable fashion to wearable technologies, from new remedies to cultural appropriation to the regulation of model weight, from advertising law on the digital market to the impact of new technologies on product distribution. The purpose is to stimulate discussion on contemporary problems that have the potential to define new boundaries of fashion law, such as the impact of the heightened ethical sensitivity of consumers (who increasingly require effective solutions), that a comparative law perspective renders more interesting. The volume seeks to sketch out the new legal fields in which the fashion industry is getting involved, identifying the new boundaries of fashion law that existing literature has not dealt with in a comprehensive manner.

Fashion knockoffs are everywhere. Even in the out-of-the-way markets of highland Guatemala, fake branded clothes offer a cheap, stylish alternative for people who cannot afford high-priced originals. Fashion companies have taken notice, ensuring that international trade agreements include stronger intellectual property protections to prevent brand “piracy.” In Regulating Style, Kedron Thomas approaches the fashion industry from the perspective of indigenous Maya people who make and sell knockoffs, asking why they copy and wear popular brands, how they interact with legal frameworks and state institutions that criminalize their livelihood, and what is really at stake for fashion companies in the global regulation of style.

Writing with inside knowledge of the fashion industry, and with authoritative source material, the author has prepared a practical direct guide to the concerns of the industry. The text is clear and concise with numerous case studies.

Exploring the debate over the benefits of legal protection for fashion design, this book focuses on how a combination of minimal legal protections for design, evolving social norms, digital technology, and market forces can promote innovation and creativity in a business known for its fast-paced remixing and borrowing. Focusing on the advantages and disadvantages of the main US and EU IP laws that protect fashion design in the world’s biggest fashion markets, it describes how recent US case law in copyright and trademark cases has led to misaligned incentives for the industry and a lack of clear protection, while, in the EU, the CJEU’s interpretation of the pan-European design rights system has created significant overlap with copyright law and risks, leading to the overprotection of design. The book proposes that creativity and innovation in fashion derive some benefit from a limited unregistered design right protection, and that cumulation with copyright protection is unhelpful. It also proposes that there is a larger role for developing social norms relating to sustainability, the ethics of cultural appropriation, and the online shaming of counterfeiters that can also help create a fair equilibrium between protection and borrowing in fashion design.

In 2016, social media users in Thailand called out the Paris-based luxury fashion house Balenciaga for copying the popular Thai “rainbow bag,” using Balenciaga’s hashtags to circulate memes revealing the source of the bags’ design. In Why We Can’t Have Nice Things Minh-Ha T. Pham examines the way social media users monitor the fashion market for the appearance of knockoff fashion, design theft, and plagiarism. Tracing the history of fashion antipiracy efforts back to the 1930s, she foregrounds the work of policing that has been tacitly outsourced to social media. Despite the social media concern for ethical fashion and consumption and the good intentions behind design policing, Pham shows that it has ironically deepened forms of social and market inequality, as it relies on and reinforces racist and colonial norms and ideas about what constitutes copying and what counts as creativity. These struggles over ethical fashion and intellectual property, Pham demonstrates, constitute deeper struggles over the colonial legacies of cultural property in digital and global economies.