Lessons from 7th Ave

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lynn <lynn () ecgincc com>
Date: February 19, 2006 9:19:04 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Lessons from 7th Ave

In fashion, one of the differences is price. A designer original from a
Paris designer, can cost a lot. A simple dress can cost thousands and
thousands of dollars. A knock-off (less expensive copy, in ready-to- 
wear)
will cost considerably less. Anyone can see this happening in any store
that carries merchandise in several price ranges.

Perhaps this is the lesson the RIAA and others need to learn. For  
example,
an mpeg is lower quality, therefore should be less expensive than the  
film
shown in a theater.

The customer purchasing the Paris original is not the same one  
purchasing
the copy off the rack. The people purchasing off the rack purchase in
several different price tiers, with matching retailers or  
departments. The
person that shops at Henri Bendel or Bloomie's does not shop at John's
Bargain store and vise versa.

This model has worked well in fashion for decades. It is adapted in live
entertainment (the better the seats, the more it costs per ticket). Why
not in recorded entertainment?

Lynn


http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0909/p09s01-coop.html

from the September 09, 2003 edition

Control of creativity? Fashion's secret
Film and music industries might heed the wisdom
By David Bollier and Laurie Racine
AMHERST, MASS., AND DURHAM, N.C. – Why do fashion, film, and music - the
sultans of cool in our culture, the shapers of our consciousness - take
such radically different approaches to the control ofcreativity?

The music and film industries continue to battle over the need to expand
copyright protection, and to limit sharing and reuse of prior work. The
fashion industry, driven by similar market interests, employs a modus
operandi that accepts rather than rejects derivation and  
appropriation as
creative tools.

The contrast is particularly fascinating, given the dependence of  
each of
these industries on our shared cultural heritage, which we call the
"commons." The music and film industries' resources are being sapped in
ongoing battles about the scope of legal protection that their CDs and
DVDs should enjoy and whether prior works may be freely reused. These
industries are unusually possessive: Their attorneys have gone after
consumers who played DVDs on non-Windows software ("piracy"), Girl  
Scouts
who sang copyrighted songs around the campfire ("no performance  
license"),
and kids who set up their own Harry Potter fan websites ("trademark
violation").

By contrast, the fashion industry long has accepted that creativity  
is too
large and fugitive an essence to be owned outright as property.  
Fashion is
a massive industry that thrives in a competitive global environment
despite minimal legal protections for its creative design. While many
people dismiss fashion as trivial and ephemeral, its economic importance
and cultural influence are enormous. US apparel sales alone were $180
billion a few years ago, supporting an estimated 80,000 garment  
factories,
and fashion is a major force in music, entertainment, and other creative
sectors.

It is precisely because fashion pervades so many aspects of our lives  
that
we fail to appreciate the "social ecology" that supports it - the open
sharing, unauthorized innovations, and creative appropriations. To be
sure, the fashion industry aggressively protects its brand names and
logos, utilizing trademarks and licensing agreements. In most cases,
however, the actual creative design of garments is not owned by anyone.
The couturier dress worn by a Hollywood starlet on the red carpet can be
knocked off immediately and legally appear days later on department  
store
racks.

The Hollywood studios and major record labels consider it self- 
evident and
axiomatic that creativity must be strictly controlled through copyright
law, lest it be "stolen" and creators forced out of business. It is a
significant point that creators, especially individual artists, need
effective, reliable ways to be paid for their work - and copyright  
offers
one important vehicle. But the fashion industry has a deeper faith in  
the
power of creativity. Despite scant legal protection, fashion businesses
invest enormous sums in each new season's creative cycle - and reap
substantial profits year after year.

For virtually all players in fashion, some form of derivation,
recombination, imitation, revival of old styles, and outright  
knockoff is
the norm. Few denounce, let alone sue, the appropriator for "creative
theft." They're too busy trying to stay ahead of the competition through
the sheer power of their design and marketing prowess.

The fashion world understands that creativity is a collaborative and
community affair. It's far too big, robust, and evolving for any one
player to "own" as a legal entitlement. Long lineages of couturiers from
Balenciaga to Ungaro, Chanel to Lagerfield, and Gucci to Tom Ford have
shown that designers necessarily must learn, adopt, and adapt from those
who have blazed previous trails. If one were to deconstruct their  
work, an
evolutionary chain of distinct themes, references, design nuances, and
outright appropriations could be discerned.

Occasionally someone may protest a "rip-off" and get murmurs of  
sympathy.
And the counterfeiting of brand-name products is rightly condemned as
theft. However, in general, creative derivation is an accepted  
premise of
fashion. Indeed, the industry's growth and prosperity have been built  
upon
the famous maxim of Isaac Newton, "If I have seen further, it is by
standing on the shoulders of giants."

Is it possible that the fashion industry, long patronized as a realm of
the ephemeral and insubstantial, is the real bellwether for future ideas
of "ownership" of creative content?

Through fashion we have a ringside seat on the ecology of creativity  
in a
world of networked communication. Ideas arise, evolve through
collaboration, gain currency through exposure, mutate in new directions,
and diffuse through imitation. The constant borrowing, repurposing, and
transformation of prior work are as integral to creativity in music and
film as they are to fashion.

Although the music and film industries acknowledge the cultural  
commons as
a source of inspiration, they then turn around and try to claim  
exclusive
ownership of the results. The Disney Company, for example, has "taken
private" dozens of folk stories and literary classics while contributing
nothing to the public domain. Such one-way privatization of our culture
makes it difficult for new creators to build from works that were
themselves derivative at an earlier point.

Creativity can endure only so much private control before it careens  
into
a downward spiral of sterile involution. If it is to be fresh,  
passionate,
and transformative, creativity must have the room to breathe and grow,
"unfettered and alive."

The legendary designer Coco Chanel understood this reality. She once  
said,
"Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only; fashion is
something in the air. It's the wind that blows in the new fashion; you
feel it coming, you smell it ... in the sky, in the street; fashion  
has to
do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening."

The fashion world recognizes that creativity cannot be bridled and
controlled and that obsessive quests to do so will only diminish its
vitality. Other content industries would do well to heed this wisdom.

• David Bollier and Laurie Racine are senior fellows at the Norman Lear
Center at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for
Communication.





-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/