I just finished watching this very interesting TED talk by a woman named Johanna Blakley. The title of the talk was "Lessons from fashion's free culture" and it was all about how, in the United States, there isn't really any copyright protection within the fashion industry. That's not to say that there's no protection at all within the US. There is trademark protection that companies like Gucci use, but the government apparently decided years ago that clothing is too utilitarian to copyright. If all clothing was copyrighted, then you would have to pay $100 for an otherwise cheap t-shirt because you would have to pay for the licensing fees for the collar or the sleeves.
I like how Johanna points out that the lack of copyright protection actually helps both the original fashion company and the knockoff fashion imitation companies. Afterall, most of the knockoffs of high price fashion items are made of cheaper materials and they cater to a more cost conscious consumer, for lack of a better term. So in theory, it's really not causing the high price retailers to lose any sales because they weren't marketing their products to this demographic anyway.
She also points out towards the end of her talk that there are a lot of industries where copyright protection is not afforded to companies because their items are too utilitarian. I don't want to spoil the video for you, so please, check it out. It was very interesting and I learned a lot about the fashion industry from it.
If the video doesn't play for you, you can go to the TED website and view it here or click on the TED link below.
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