TODAY IN BAD IDEAS. The New York Times reports today on a bill that's gathering steam in congress to extend intellectual property protection to the design of clothing and handbags. In other words, once someone has laid claim to a certain design of dress, no one else can make the same one without permission of the original designer. The bill has been languishing in the House for over a year, and has now been introduced in the Senate by Chuck Schumer.
For the record, this is a really terrible idea. Judges are going to be called upon to decide how similar two handbags are (already a big problem in music where the issues are far clearer), prices for designer goods will go up since they will now be protected from competition, and the clothing available at retailers that ordinary people actually shop at will be deprived of major sources of ideas. Furthermore, the bill would stifle creativity by preventing designers from borrowing ideas from one-another.
The logic behind the bill is flawed. Copyrights exist because the government decides that, unless we grant certain people temporary monopolies on certain things, no-one will have an incentive to produce them. So we let people prevent others from selling their music so that artists can make money which in turn encourages them to spend time making music. We can of course argue whether this is best way to organize things in music--I tend to think that it's not, but this is the basic logic. Protection for fashion only makes sense if it is necessary to get people to produce quality fashion goods.
Clearly, this is not the case. Throw a stick in New York and chances are you'll hit a fashion designer, model, or photographer and there thousands of others desperate to get in. Designers already can use brands to distinguish their work (which are protected under trademark law). They enjoy a great deal of media attention and financial success and, most importantly, a lot of fashion is being produced. Copyrights for fashion, then, solve a problem that doesn't exist. If Congress passes this bill, it'll be fixing something that isn't close to broken.
--Sam Boyd
