The Fashion Industry As a Model For IP Reform 398
Scrameustache writes "In this 15-minute TED talk, Johanna Blakley addresses a subject alien to most here — fashion — but in a way sure to grab our attention. The lesson is about how the fashion industry's lack of copyright protection can teach other industries about what copyright means to innovation. And yes, she mentions open source software. There is one killer slide at 12:20 comparing the gross sales of low-IP-protection industries with those of films and books and music. If you want to know more, or if you prefer text, the Ready To Share project website should give you all the data you crave on the subject."
Sadly unlikely to happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Umm, are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
you talk to any of the young, creative designers that are moving things forward, and they will tell you about how all of their designs are being ripped off by mall stores.
If I talked to such people, I'd firat ask which rules they used to prove their desings are completely original and the mall's are rip-offs.
Some big differences... (Score:4, Insightful)
People copy fashions of high end items. Most people can't afford those anyway. They're too expensive. So no sales are lots.
Clothing is a physical good. If you can make one instance of it, you still need to repeat the whole manufacturing process to make more. This is not true of digital information.
The value of a good drops with the availability of the good. Digital information can be replicated infinitely. Clothing is much harder to replicate.
The value of clothing drops dramatically within 3 months because fashions are seasonal. So if you can replicate it after 1 year, no one cares. This is not true of software, movies, music, etc. A lot of IP retains its value for decades or longer.
Re:Umm, are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
And you might want to tone down that "Obviously you haven't heard of *obscure reference*." No, we haven't, and you could consider explaining it instead of telling us how whatever it is makes you sympathetic to megacorps enforcing IP laws. I doubt you'll get a lot of sympathy for that, although I'm sure that wasn't your goal, withering contempt for anyone who's not in "your industry" seemed to be the goal.
Re:Umm, are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet I wonder how many of those young independent designers would be in business for themselves if the big chains already held patent thickets to prevent emerging competition. I wonder how many of them would find they could only make a living if they worked directly for one of the big chains in such a world.
And I wonder how many of them would see the change as an improvement, if fashion patents were to be allowed.
You are absolutely right. I do find that hard to believe
Re:Planned obsolescene is in common (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think so, especially since this system is implemented exclusively by the consumers, not the fashion industry. There's nothing whatsoever preventing people from buying last year's fashion (or fashion from several years ago), and many people do. They choose to make themselves look different every season, and a high price, because that's important to them. The "quality" of the clothes (if you only consider practical utility) is but a minor factor when compared against their need to look different every season.
Re:Some big differences... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not true of software, movies, music, etc. A lot of IP retains its value for decades or longer.
Bovine excrement.
Most modern IP loses most of its value quite quickly. A hit song quickly stops being a hit song as new songs claw up the charts. A movie drops out of theaters after a few months. Software might have a bit more longevity, but even there it's probably around 2 to 5 years, not decades.
Only a few classics retain value longer - but that's also true for the fashion industry. Some "vintage" haute couture is still very much sought-after.
Re:Some big differences... (Score:5, Insightful)
How old's the TCP/IP stack running most computers? How old's the Linux/OSX/Windows kernel? What about the MP3 file format?
The difference between fashion and software (well, one of the many) is that software can be improved on iteratively. Even if your software is old, if it's solid and mature, people will want to built new shinies on top of its old reliable, and therefore, it was value to them.
Talk was wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
The speaker is getting her things mixed up.
Open source is copyrighted. And if it were not then people would copy without any regards. For example the GPL works BECAUSE of copyright. It uses copyright to keep free.
Examples not transferable - TM violate = jailtime. (Score:3, Insightful)
Fashion is about standing out, getting attention and signalling belonging to an elite clique. Items cannot be replicated infinitely. Because items are easy to create, many are created. Brand matters.
Computer software is about utility - does it work or not. Items can be replicated infinitely. Because items are difficult to create, very few are created. Brand does not matter.
With fashion, what you pay for is 1) the physical item itself, 2) the time that went into designing the item, 3) the prestige the creator has built for themselves.
With computer software, there is clearly no point in paying for the physical item itself, and no point in paying for any prestige either.
You could say that "if you could download clothes fully made there would still be an industry based around design" - true, but the example isn't transferable, because clothes, as mentioned above, are easy to create and many are created. If designing a dress cost $200m, and copies made of it were sold _marked with the same brand and in the same stores_, it would never be designed in the first place.
In fact, the important thing in fashion isn't about copyright protection, it's about trademark protection. Why does Armani sell? Because, although people can copy their style, they cannot copy their brand. It's trademark protection that is key to the profitability of the fashion industry - which she does NOT mention at all. Trademark is to fashion what copyright is to computers. Ask a designer how they would feel if trademark protection was removed, and you would see any "brand" they seek to create for themselves copied identically by mass producers. By pretending that the fashion industry thrives with no copyright protection, she fails to point out that their "intellectual property" is their TM, which they guard like hawks. This is deceptive. You go to jail for violating fashion trademarks. I would even argue that fashion trademarks are even stricter than computer copyrights.
Not to mention that to base projections about downloads on current download/sales ratios are deceptive - because if copyright violation was legal, companies would rapidly spring up, in the style of Steam, with a menu of software ready to pipe to home computers. Why pay for a movie in a store when you can have a library of every movie ever created instantly available only for the cost of bandwidth? With the current torrent system, at least a) your bandwidth may be limited, which market pressure would stop it from if copyright violation was legal; b) there are a few steps involved in burning the ISO; c) you will miss out on patches and downloadable content. If copyright violation was legal a Steam-like system would spring up in 2-3 months, with a well-managed system of circumventing copy protection. This would again lead to an explosion of even stricter anti-circumvention, probably involving hardware, which would add multiple layers of cost.
Why must KDawson be evil enough to put forward deceptive examples uncritically to serve his ideology? Can everyone else do the same thing? Or is being deceptive good as long as it serves the cause of good? It doesn't exactly inspire me to show much regard in return.
Re:Planned obsolescene is in common (Score:4, Insightful)
I liked what the designer said in the video she showed: "The knockoff customer is not our customer". Let's say Apple has a new design (e.g. iPhone OS). So some Chinese company "steals" the design and manufactures a device that looks the same. Obviously it has a cheaper overall build. Who would buy it? Probably not the people who would pay the big(er) bucks for an iPhone/iPad. Of course, there isn't a clear cut distinction between the 2 populations, but I believe the loss suffered by Apple is minimal, while the gain to the entire industry (and also for Apple - because it is forced to innovate) is huge. Note: Apple is just an example. This could work for Google, HP, RIAA, MPAA, you-name-it.
This video is the first argument that really convinced me that software IP is damaging and music piracy isn't such a bad thing. I believed in it for a long time, but here I got a good example of how a different culture has bred a better (and more profitable) industry.
The TCP/IP stack isn't protected. (Score:5, Insightful)
The TCP/IP stack isn't protected. Fail.
The difference between fashion and software (well, one of the many) is that software can be improved on iteratively.
And that improved version gets a NEW copyright, therefore the OLD one doesn't need it any more.
Even if your software is old, if it's solid and mature, people will want to built new shinies on top of its old reliable, and therefore, it was value to them.
Except with closed source (heck, even most Open Source but not FOSS), you CANNOT. Go update Windows 95 so it supports the new Atom subnotes.
Re:Umm, are you kidding? (Score:1, Insightful)
So, you're saying that people are upset that they do not have government-enforced Monopolies and that they must constantly innovate to compete against this so-called "theft"? Shocking!
Ask the 99.999% of people who aren't designers but consumers if they feel that there is too little innovation in fashion or if they are upset that cheap imitation fashion is available. I dare you to find one such person who will be upset by all this "theft".
I have no idea why you were modded "Insightful" (those are ironic quotes). You clearly didn't even watch the video and totally missed the entire point. The Constitution allows Monopolies if and only if they 'promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts'. Now go back and reread your comment and explain to me where your argument explained how fashion Monopolies would accomplish such a goal, rather than deter it (which is what they would actually do). You are clearly very confused, as are those who modded you up. Sad.
Re:Umm, are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the fashion industry's continued and persistent success proves two things:
1. That IP laws do NOT add incentive to create and it never has. It's a huge lie.
2. That when people copy freely that nobody can make any money. Once again, huge lie. As stated, it turns out that demographic plays a huge role in determining who buys what and for how much. "They are not our customers!"
They are indeed the model for copyright reform. They prove that an industry is in perpetual motion due to its lack of IP protection. The lack has done more to keep people busy and employed and even rich than any amount of protection could offer.
What IP protection offers is a way to slow down and control the evolution of design -- a way to way to invest less in R&D and design and still make money.
Re:Please get your facts right in TED talks! (Score:4, Insightful)
...she's needlessly negligent in her characterization of how FOSS interacts with copyright law.
Yes ... but in this context, the difference isn't that important (and might have confused her audience). There's no source/binary distinction with clothing - producing duplicates of a new garment is trivial compared to reverse-engineering a compiled binary. The GPL uses copyright to prevent people from locking up source code - but in fashion, that ability has never existed in the first place, so from their point of view open-source coders are giving up all the parts of copyright that matter to them.
Re:Umm, are you kidding? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet it becomes one of the most prohibitive pieces of copyright and IP legislation in existence. Way to go, fashion industry.
Re:Umm, are you kidding? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't blame the instigator for what the implementors do.
AFAICT, the fashion industry is only really concerned about Trademarks. Gucci probably couldn't care less if someone tried to sell "Krauti" handbags, which looked almost exactly like Gucci ones. They know that their customers wouldn't buy Krauti handbags even if they were physically identical atom-for-atom (barring the branding).
Re:Don't care about Copyright? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not the whole reason the GPL requires copyright. The GPL ensures that a purchaser of a program always has access to the source code so he can make needed changes, and that would not be possible without copyright. In a copyright-free world, every program would be free to copy, but nobody could force anyone to release the source code.
Re:Don't care about Copyright? (Score:3, Insightful)
No. Without copyright, all programs would be free to copy, but the source code would not be available. GPL forces anyone who distributes a program to also distribute the source code, and without copyright there would be no way to enforce it.
Re:Examples not transferable - TM violate = jailti (Score:4, Insightful)
It's trademark protection that is key to the profitability of the fashion industry - which she does NOT mention at all.
Actually, she does. More than once. Did you watch the video?
The point that she makes is that the ability to create derivative works fuels innovation, makes money, and fosters creativity, a point that I totally agree with.
Your assertion that "If designing a dress cost $200m, and copies made of it were sold _marked with the same brand and in the same stores_, it would never be designed in the first place." is specious.
Movies that cost $200M (and more, much more), are greenlighted all the time, bomb at the box office, die in the dustbins of discount DVDs, still don't recover their budgetary costs, and yet that doesn't stop more from being made. Does it?
Which leads to the question: Why do movies that cost millions to make generally suck the most?
Could it be that the old business models, dinosaurian management, and a sense of protected entitlement, foster a culture that recycles themes, prizes visual efx over story, stifles creativity and throttles risk taking?
Look at some of the most successful, highest grossing movies of the last 15 years and I think you'll see more that were made on relatively small budgets (Blair Witch Project being the poster child, but there are others [wikipedia.org]) than you will Summer Blockbusters. My Big Fat Greek Wedding was turned down for production by all the major studios until Playtone picked it up, dropped it in the can for $5M and to date it's grossed $369M worldwide.
No, I'm with Johanna Blakely, less protectionism, less legislation, and less artificial control will foster change, evolution and creation, and that's something we should look forward to.
Re:Umm, are you kidding? (Score:3, Insightful)
or that those cheap clothes will disintegrate within a year of purchase.
Re:Umm, are you kidding? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pfft. It's almost like you're saying that a lack of IP protection results in a faster pace of development, forcing innovators to move quickly to develop an idea, get it to market, and profit from it (greatly) in the natural lag before someone comes along and copies it cheaply.
Such an idea is, of course, pure craziness. Fashion design must be a marginal business, with very little profit and those poor, poor innovators living in cardboard boxes and eating cat food to stay alive.
VERY, VERY Flawed Analogy... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is one killer slide at 12:20 [youtube.com] comparing the gross sales of low-IP-protection industries with those of films and books and music.
Seriously?
Comparing food, cars and clothing to films, books and music?
I don't know about you... but I kinda have this habit of eating every day, sometimes even more than once.
I also have this crazy need to change my clothes from time to time. Sometimes I even throw it away as I find it "unwearable", as it gets worn out OR my body changes from all that food I eat every day.
Compared to that, I am yet to throw away any of my DVDs, CDs, books etc. because it is "worn out" or "out of trend" or "I don't want to watch/listen to/read that at the moment".
And putting cars up there... Why not diamonds too? Or "space vacations"?
Come on... You can't compare a price of a car to the price of a lunch, or a pair of pants, or a CD.
Also, note the HUGE difference in the gross sales of the first two industries (food - which everyone buys all the time; cars - which cost much more per single item than the products of any other industry) and the rest of the "IP-freely" industries (fashion - items last a lot longer than food; furniture - lasts virtually forever).
Furniture is right there at the low end with the movies. Despite the fact that a decent bed (or even a cheap one) will set you back a lot more than a fun movie.
Also, virtues of copying? [youtube.com]
Ohh... Just TRY incorporating the second two into ANY industry not based on shoe shopping.
"Induced obsolescence"? Really?
How would you like to have to re-buy ALL your software, books, movies, CDs EVERY SEASON instead of every time a new digital media appers?
Why would you have to buy it?
Because of "Acceleration in creative innovation", which translates to:
Fashionistas want to stay ahead of the curve.
They don't want to be wearing what everybody else is wearing and so they want to move on to the next trend as soon as possible.
EVERY SEASON these designers have to struggle to come up with the new fabulous idea that everybody's going to love.
And this [..] is very good for the bottom line.
In other words - snobbery supported by profit margin supported by snobbery.
Sure... you might say that we already have that in constantly changing "modern" music, artsy-fartsy films or even Apple.
But none of those "industries" can be pushed into fashion industry's "season based" product cycle.
Why?
Because fashion is the only "art" that can become OBSOLETE.
Re:Flawed Analogy? (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's not an analogy. It's a reductio ad absurdum. Certain economic hypotheses put forward by advocates of stronger and more restrictive intellectual property laws have been repeated so often that people treat them as fundamental principles, as scientific laws. If they are scientific laws, they should apply to every industry, otherwise the proponents of these "laws" are guilty of special pleading.
Fashion is an interesting case because it's exempted from copyright laws, and the legal reasoning for that exemption is specious. Think about it: fashion is too utilitarian to be copyrighted, but *software* is not? I can design an evening gown for somebody to wear to the Oscars, and that's *utilitarian*, but if I write a spanning tree algorithm for a a network hub, that's *creative*?
Fashion is creative expression par excellence; it has almost no value other than the emotional response it evokes in its viewers. We don't judge fashion designers by how comfortable their clothes are (!!!), how well they protect wearers from the elements. We judge them by how provocative their designs are. Therefore any argument that I, a software writer, have to be "incented" to be creative must apply even *more* to a fashion designer. Any argument that creativity in the software industry will collapse without rigorous IP protection is inconsistent with the existence of a fashion industry.
Now let's get to a real analogy. I think without IP protection we'd still have a software industry, but it'd look very, very different. Copyright creates an artificial scarcity. That brings more developers into the market. Copyright protection in the fashion industry would probably result in many, many more fashion houses springing up. The end of copyright in software would mean that many developers would be out of a job, even though the social utility of the industry would be increased and its economic value not necessarily decreased.
Copyright in software makes a programming career possible for many more mediocre developers. On the other hand it makes the best developers less productive by forcing them to waste their creativity reinventing the wheel.
Re:VERY, VERY Flawed Analogy... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many musical artists have created and sold music over the last 100 years, how many of those artists are still remembered and/or listened to on a regular basis, and are still considered as popular and/or relevant as when they created their music? Discuss. For bonus points, compare and contrast the trends in the music industry during the 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's, and identify whether or not these trends bare any resemblance to fashion trends in that the music changes because, over time, music artists "want to stay ahead of the curve", and "don't want to be" playing "what everybody else is" playing.
Completely wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Fashion doesn't need copyright because they have super-aggressive design patent and trademark protections. Coca-cola doesn't have to worry about copyright on the coca-cola logo design on shirts because the design is a registered trademark, and thus is way easier and more powerful to prosecute than a wimpy ol' copyright. I am surprised that this would qualify as a TED talk since it seems to completely miss the point, but I haven't seen too many... are they all this wrong?
Re:Some big differences... (Score:1, Insightful)
How are the buttons on your shirts? How about the zipper on your pants? Have your pockets significantly improved in the past 100 years or so since they started using rivets on jeans? Is a belt today any different than a belt 50 years ago?
Re:VERY, VERY Flawed Analogy... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Umm, are you kidding? (Score:3, Insightful)
The ramp-up to copy a new dress 50,000 times and ship it to market is a fair bit more than, say, the ramp-up to provide 50,000 downloads of an application.
If there was no copyright, you wouldn't knock off the application. You'd do a digital copy and offer digital copies. That's not possible when selling a physical product.
It's a dumb thing to say, here's why (Score:3, Insightful)
Any asshole can make umpteen zillion copies of an mp3, but it takes equipment to churn out a bunch of dresses. Car parts work the same way; unless some patent prevents you from replicating them, you can make all the replacement parts you want. Unless there's a design patent on it, you can copy the design of a fender, and then stamp out knockoffs as fast as you can sell them... but it takes enough equipment to work sheet metal like that. Clearly, material and nonmaterial goods are fundamentally different. That's why we have separate laws for theft of property and "theft" of ideas.
(ObDisclaimer: I didn't watch some woman blather for fifteen minutes, when if I had the opportunity, I could read the same shit in three. Posting video links is stupid, Ted Talks is stupid for not having transcripts, and their website sucks for requiring Javascript.)
Re:Flawed Analogy? (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason software and other forms of IP are copyrighted but fashion is not is because of availability or, as you said, scarcity.
When you buy a book, or music, or a piece of software, you are buying information. It often happens that you're buying information in a particular encoding on a particular medium, but you're buying a piece of information.
Without copyright law, what incentive would Microsoft have to continue to spend billions annually on software development and R&D? The moment they ship a single copy of Windows to someone they have not directly contracted with, the cat is out of the bag, they can make their own copies. They take their Windows disc and make copies for all their friends, and some company in a Southeast Asian country starts mass-producing it, depriving Microsoft of billions in revenue. Oh, and don't think open source saves you. With no copyright, the GPL is unenforceable. The GPL is a license that gives recipients of a copyright work rights. Without copyright, you can treat everything in the world as BSD licensed.
On the other hand, fashion is a literal thing, where knock-offs are typically identifiable as such and people often buy brands for their trademark logo. Like she says in TFS, customers who go to the fast fashion places or the seedy underbellies of major cities to buy handbags are not and never were Gucci's customers. Gucci may even end up selling the same design, sans trademark, to those people. They know they're going to copy it no matter what, and they know their customers are buying Gucci for the brand, the status, and of course, being on the bleeding edge of fashion.
Copyright is absolutely necessary for ideas, but I agree with the courts in that fashion is not something that can be copied with perfect fidelity. The trademarks alone prohibit perfect copies. On the other hand, if you buy a book from a penniless author, it is trivial, albeit time consuming, to make a perfect copy of the book's content. And it becomes even easier with all digital works.
Re:Flawed Analogy? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a perfect illustration as to why our copyright laws are retarded. If you design an evening gown it isn't copyrightable, but if you take that same evening gown, put it on a mannequin and place it in an art gallery, it's sculpture and CAN be copyrighted.
It's just insane.
Re:Don't care about Copyright? (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on what you mean by "without copyright".
If you mean, take the current situation, substract copyright and change nothing else then yes, that would be true.
What I think Stallman really wants is not how things are right now, or how things are right now minus copyright, but something like: how things are right now, minus copyright, plus copyleft for everything.
The current, copyright way is: "I made this, and I own it". You release a book/movie/song and say "this is mine, I dictate how it can be used".
Substracting copyright you get something like: "I made this. But I don't care what you do with it". You release a book/movie/song, but then place no limits on it. It can be copied, reprinted, sampled, sold, whatever. I can take your book/song, wrap it in a DRMed format, and sell it.
But how about a third option? Something like "This is un-ownable". You release your book/movie/song but the society says that books don't have an owner. The content of the book belongs to the society itself, and none may place a restriction on it. Any book written is automatically included in a public library, it always is legal to copy, and it is illegal to attempt to lay any claim on it, and to try to prevent copying.
Think of it like a piece of public land, like a forest. Nobody really owns it. Anybody may pass through. There are conditions set on the usage, like "you must leave everything like it was when you came in". It's a communal good and can't be rented, sold, set fire to, etc.
I think there's somewhere a tribe that operates under an idea somewhat similar to this: the knowledge you have in your head isn't your. It's what you picked up from other people, plus for instance, some divine inspiration. Your creations then are for the most part picked up from other sources, and your own contribution is considered to be so insignificant that it doesn't give you any right to assert any control over the results. For the same reason, nobody else has any right to restrict it either.
A modern society among those lines would be something like: there's no copyright. Any product made must have complete schematics and source code available to anybody who asks, at no cost, or at most the price of duplication. DRM, anti-copy mechanisms and obfuscation are illegal. Patents are inexistent.
A very apt analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
This question was specifically addressed in the talk. To dig deeper, maybe Microsoft doesn't need to spend billions annually on software development and R&D. It's very likely that Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Apple, Adobe, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Cisco, etc. are all spending billions doing more or less the same research. The first one who gets it basically invalidates the billions that all the others have spent, at least for 20 years. If Microsoft could just openly rip off, say, Apple, then maybe some of those billions they're spending on reinventing Apple's wheel could be spent improving Apple's wheel instead. Better yet, maybe Joe Kernelhacker could take the wheels that Microsoft, Oracle, Google, etc. have created, tweak it a bit, and come up with something that the rest could in turn incorporate, or that he could even sell and help share the wealth.
Also, look at, for example, Adobe's new feature in Photoshop whereby you can remove stuff from pictures just by painting a boundary around it, and it fills in the background. Now, I'll agree that you shouldn't be able to just copy the code directly from Photoshop and use it in your own application wholesale. But as the laws are set up now, you can't even implement your own version of this feature, and that's absolutely horrible for innovation. Hell, just look what's going on with the H.264 battle. Not only are some people saying you can't use that codec--by far, the most popular and well-supported codec on the Internet--to make your own videos without paying up to MPEG LA, but some have issued veiled threats that the whole process is patented down so heavily that making any software that can stream video at all will get you sued into oblivion. And they're probably right.
The point of that tangent is that without software patents and copyright laws being extremely relaxed, maybe Microsoft can take some of that money they spend on lawyers (a very significant amount, by the way) and divert it to R&D because they no longer have to worry about being sued and paying millions to some schmuck who, it turns out, has a patent on wiping their butts. (Not to mention the millions in royalties they're having to pay to the other schmuck who has the patent on using toilet paper.)
Also, the fact that Adobe has the first product on the market that can do the out-of-sight out-of-mind trick is great advertising. Without software patents, will everyone replicate this feature in their products? Eventually, of course, yes. It's a cool feature. But it's obviously something that's not easy to replicate. It's not like Microsoft can just go to their development gurus and say, "Make this happen." If they incorporated it into Paint, it would probably take them months or even years to figure out a way to replicate the effect, during which time Adobe will be selling copies of Photoshop like gangbusters. This was what she was referring to with the slide on making it hard to replicate.
Have you ever used a piece of software that was blazing fast at something? Unless it was open source, did you really know exactly how it was fast? Was it because they came up with some clever way to use less resources? Did they come up with some clever algorithm that churns the numbers faster than everyone else? Did they just work really hard to remove all the bloat from their code, or write it to use resources on your machine at a lower level? There are literally millions of ways to make something work better. I just don't think that IBM will be ripping stuff off left and right from Oracle because it's not like they're going to instantly just know what to rip off.
Re:Okay, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean unlike furniture - an industry that according to the graph in the presentation has higher annual sales numbers than movies, books and music combined?
Yes ... because the fashion industry has absolutely no new designs comming out ever. The last time I saw something new in fashion was 1973!
Re:VERY, VERY Flawed Analogy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Okay, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that's an interesting point. Let me ask you, what's the downside in software development? A good software developer should copy as much as possible — yes, legally, from good sources, etc. The whole point to code reuse is that one guy does it right and everyone can use that "best" solution instead of reinventing a slightly less round wheel.
I believe that a good programmer should feel a disincentive to create. That's something which took me years to learn as a young programmer. I've lost track of the number of times I wrote quick-n-dirty linked lists because that was less work than learning the interfaces to existing solutions. I was wrong, and eventually I figured it out. What's wrong with encouraging programmers to figure it out earlier?
I'm not advocating zero copyright for source code, but a greatly reduced term seems perfectly fine with me. Although there are some strong economics ideas that we don't even need copyright to have a thriving open source community. See, E.g., Michele Boldrin and David Levine's paper on Market Structure and Property Rights in Open Source Industries (PDF [wustl.edu]).
Re:Umm, are you kidding? (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously nobody has heard of "Forever 21."
Of course we haven't. WTF are you doing on slashdot? We're nerds. We don't give two shits about fashion. We don't care what it looks like, we care how well it's made and how well it works. We don't care what our jeans look like, we care about how comfortable they are and how much shit we can carry in the pockets.
You might as well troll a fashion messageboard with "obviously you've never heard of Emacs."
Stat problem: failure to know what is measured (Score:1, Insightful)
While the graph shown at ~12:23 is interesting, is that what is being actually measured?
For those with tired old eyes, the Y-axis was Gross Sales of Good in billions of USD, and the X-axis was:
"Food Automobiles Fashion Furniture" -- which she labeled as "Low IP Industries"
"Films Books Music" -- which she labeled as "High IP Industries"
I wonder if the proper labels and groupings are, in fact:
"Food Automobiles Clothing Furniture" -- Essentials for life in the US
"Films Books Music" -- Luxuries
OR
"Food Automobiles Clothing Furniture" -- Physical items
"Films Books Music" -- (mostly) Electronic media that could be pirated more easily than stealing physical items.
This would probably also create the trend she was looking for.