What's Bill Clinton doing these days?
Similarly, if anyone would like to mount a primary challenge to Rahm Emanuel & wants a policy advisor/speechwriter, I'm your girl.
1: I'm still hoping for him for mayor of NYC. I think he'd be perfect.
Wouldn't that kind of work against how fashion works? Isn't the whole general flow runway to boutique to department store to knockoff of the department store, and half the point of the runway is to get people to make knockoffs that people will want to buy because it's like what's in Milan?
1: Bill Clinton's place is obviously secretary general of the UN.
1: I'm kind of hoping he gets eaten by a rogue hippo that escapes from the zoo. But that's my default response for all former presidents, since none of them end up rightfully in the Hague.
Bill Clinton's place is obviously secretary general of the UN.
Because Americans should rule the world symbolically, too?
Lizardbreath for Senate!
Now there's a thought.
Bill Clinton's place is obviously secretary general of the UN.
I'm sure he wants it, but I doubt an American will ever get that job.
10 is probably correct, but if ever there were an American who retains the international good will to get it, it's him.
Maybe once China becomes the hegemonic power, we could have Sec-General.
And, sadly, Schumer will never lose a primary challenge. Unless he gets caughht at something. It's not that he's super-popular, but he's super-entrenched.
Heh. I could probably get votes in my neighborhood if I got Sally to translate my speeches. "I'm monolingual, but my charmingly articulate eight-year-old speaks Spanish!" Add Buck's knack for becoming close personal friends with everyone he gets within a hundred yards of, and I'd sweep my block.
Upstate, I'd have trouble.
The best thing about LizardBreath for Senate is that the worst thing you can say about her - that her breath is disturbingly lizard-like - is right there on the campaign poster. Talk about political ju-jitsu!
Schumer will never lose a primary challenge
You can take that to the bank.
Wouldn't that kind of work against how fashion works? Isn't the whole general flow runway to boutique to department store to knockoff of the department store, and half the point of the runway is to get people to make knockoffs that people will want to buy because it's like what's in Milan?
Yes, that can still happen - and if those knockoffs get to be too trendy themselves, this new copyright power can be selectively enforced!
John Edwards should run for Senator from New York if he does not succeed in his current goal.
You can take that to the bank.
Yeah, it didn't help. I'm still overdrawn.
Schumer will never lose a primary challenge
He can get eaten by the escaped hippo once it's done with Bill.
Speaking of self-important New York political figures, Pam Oshry is in the news!
(via SadlyNo via ThePoorMan)
I'd agree that intellectual property rights are probably too extensive in our society, but given their current extent, I'm not sure I can give a convincing, principled reason why fashion designs shouldn't be treated as IP.
Because the justification for patent and copyright, and IP productions generally, is that they are necessary to encourage the production of new designs and new works of art, not that the first person to think of something has a natural right to keep other people from having the same thought. There is no such necessity for fashion designs (and patent and copyright have gotten kind of out of control).
Patent and copyright provide the holder with a rent or monopoly. The question is, does providing the holder with a rent or monopoly have good effects or bad effects? This depends on the situation. In drug development, if you don't entitle the company to a monopoly no drugs will get developed. In fashion design, the price of development and research is, oh, maybe one millionth as significant to the company as it is in drug development. Therefore entitling fashion design companies to these monopolies doesn't reward them for doing much in particular, it just gives them free money/power.
I don't find either 21 or 22 convincing. Maybe the problem is that I haven't read the underlying NYT article, but surely we're not talking about patent protection. Copyright protection is about protecting creative productions that are easily mimicked. How is a fashion design inherently different from, say, a painting?
One's a painting, the other's a useful object?
You know, I'd really love it, if the law went through and some random hobo was able to sue Urban Outfitters.
Not in it's design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Not in its design-attributes, it's not. Or conversely, a painting is a perfectly useful object for covering up a hole in your wall.
Dude, you're scaring me a little today.
I'm having technical difficulties.
23: I'd think there would also be definitional difficulties with garment design, because the "same" garment is produced in different sizes and colors and "different" garments can be very similar. How do you craft a definition under which a red size 2 of Armani blouse X is the same thing as a black size 14 of that design but both are different from a blue size 6 of a similar Versace blouse?
51: Aha, that's where the "Lifetime Employment For IP Lawyers" part comes in.
Right, and what's the 'same' in terms of a design? Are you going to copyright 'the miniskirt'? If not, 'the blue miniskirt'? How close a shade of blue? and so on, and so on. Who owns 'jeans'? So, obviously, ordinary clothes can't be covered, we're talking about individualized high fashion -- the ballgown with the ostrich-feather plumes and Austrian crystals. If I dye my plumes a different shade of pink, and have nine rather than seven, is it the same dress?
To address Brock's point another way: It may well not be possible to come up with a principled argument for why IP law should cover all the things it covers now and not fashion as well, but that just goes to show the insanity of current IP law and why it's a bad idea to extend it to yet another domain.
FWIW, I've heard wildly varying things on copyright protections for architectural designs. On the one hand, Fallingwater is plainly unique, and duplicating it is, in some sense, "stealing" Wright's design. OTOH, Wright already got paid for his design by the client - that's his incentive to innovate. OTTH, most buildings borrow pretty heavily from precedent (as does fashion). OYAH, I think that you can copyright floorplans but not elevations (exterior wall views). But to me it makes a lot more sense the other way - most residential floorplans are 95% similar to something that already exists, whereas you can make dozens of fetching outsides to go with any given floorplan - that's where the creativity (potentially) comes into play.
I think that the bottom line is that copyright exists so that no one can literally steal the design from the architect, building a house without paying for the design. It certainly has no practical restraint on professional imitation, er, homage. Which runs against Schumer's asinine idea.
Argh, I hate Chuck Schumer. I hate him because he toys with my affections: one day, he's on about insanely stupid shit like this; another, he's the only high-profile Democrat who'll say something that needs to be said.
This in particular is insanely stupid. Copyright is already way out of control, and copyrights of fashion designs seem impossible to enforce anyway. If the issue is counterfeiting, as Schumer implies, then the problem already falls under trademark protection. If the issue is "stealing designs," then there's no particular incentive to copy a design exactly; copying elements of it can be good enough to take advantage of its popularity.
And of course it's true that a primary challenge to Schumer would never *win* but it seems like a lot of our invulnerable dems could benefit from primary challenges just vigorous enough to make them worry a little.
53 is all issues that lawyers and courts would figure out over time, just as they have with every other sort of IP. 54 is a point I considered, and is reasonable in its own way. But come on... that's the objection people give against gay marriage.
55: Wouldn't the basic rule be that you can't copy a set of drawings but there's nothing stopping you from copying a house? Boat design has its own set of rules to deal with just that sort of thing (e.g. popping a mold off someone else's boat), but I don't think there's anything similar for buildings, is there?
58: Really, it wouldn't. Any rule other than precise, thread for thread copying, would be ridiculous to enforce.
Seriously. I'm wearing a shirtdress right now, styled kind of like a men's dress shirt, but knee length and with a belt. Would that be copyrightable, when there are literally a thousand pretty close variations on it for sale somewhere in this city? (Okay, for a thousand I'd have to add in thrift shops. Bet I could do it with those, though.) Where do you start drawing the line?
58: Also false to suggest that lawyers and courts have figured out all other sorts of IP issues in a stable and predictable way.
59: Well, as I said, I'm unclear on the whole issue (I shouldn't be, but there you go). Part of it is that I think that, if it comes down to a court case, the copyright holder won't have any rights except in a breech of contract situation anyway - client says "no thanks, this isn't what I wanted," then builds it as-drawn. I'm not sure the copyright is adding any protection.
I guess it all depends what's being copyrighted - the physical paper-and-ink, or the design it represents. I'm pretty sure the architect owns the drawings regardless of whether he puts a little c in a circle (this is in the standard contracts between architect and owner and builder), so what, theoretically, is being copyrighted?
Owning the pieces of paper and owning the right to control reproduction of what's drawn on them are two different things. The latter is copyright.
The design is what's copyrighted -- it's the 'right' to 'copy' the design. In your breach situation, you'd be able to recover under contract (not legal advice, I'm not your lawyer, you don't even know if I am a lawyer), but the copyright wouldn't make much of a difference.
Owning the pieces of paper and owning the right to control reproduction of what's drawn on them are two different things.
Yeah, I miswrote - by paper-and-ink I was including a big photocopy.
The design is what's copyrighted -- it's the 'right' to 'copy' the design. In your breach situation, you'd be able to recover under contract (not legal advice, I'm not your lawyer, you don't even know if I am a lawyer), but the copyright wouldn't make much of a difference.
Yeah, that''s what I thought. Once someone else moves a closet, the design is changed, and the copyright is void, anyway.
65: But "the design" means the drawings, not what's built from the drawings, right? If I take a bunch of photos and measurements of a house built from JRoth's design and construct an exact replica, I don't think I've violated his copyright.
62 is definitely right, but all I'm saying is that I don't think fashion design is insurmountably different.
I actually don't know in that context. I'm thinking you would have violated the copyright -- the house is a copy of the design contained in the drawings, and a copy of the copy would still be a copy -- but I mostly don't know much about IP.
68: But what's the reason for extending it?
And it really would be insurmountably different -- distinguishing a new design from prior art would be a ridiculous process. Look at what you're wearing right now, and imagine copyrighting any of it.
69: Dammit, now I'm curious and have to go Googling. But I'm about 75% sure I'm right.
Primary challenger for Shumer in 2010? Five letters:
RFK JR
Then again, when Hillary is inaugurated in 2009, Spitzer can appoint him to his father's seat. Which might be cooler.
And....dayum but I do love the internets, even when they prove me wrong. "Embodied in any tangible medium of expression, including a building" (emphasis added) looks like the important bit.
An original design of a building embodied in any tangible medium of expression, including a building, architectural plans, or drawings, is subject to copyright protection as an "architectural work" under Section 102 of the Copyright Act, 17 USC, as amended on December 1, 1990. The work includes the overall form as well as the arrangement and composition of spaces and elements in the design but does not include individual standard features or design elements that are functionally required.
That's from some government publication; looks to me like the design as embodied in the building is just as copyrightable as the design in the drawings.
Dammit, you win. But I guessed right first!
76: But I wasn't quite guessing, I was trying to extrapolate from my tiny little bit of copyright knowledge and getting it wrong (I didn't think a building would count as a tangible medium of expression for copyright purposes). But I'll let you claim victory, since you're a girl and I'm in the sexist pig caucus today.
Well, neither was I guessing. I was thinking logically along the lines of 'could you copyright a model instead of drawings? Sure, nothing special about 2D. Is there any reason the scale of the model should be important? Can't think of any. Well, what about a 1-1 scale. Hmpfh. You can copyright a building.'
But as a member of the gentle sex, I'll accept your concession gracefully, without rubbing it in.
A little more sexism for today: Let's say you wanted to copy a building almost exactly, but change it just enough for it to be considered satire, and therefore protected as "fair use". What would you do?
copy a building almost exactly, but change it just enough
A guy I used to work for was very proud of this anecdote:
A client wanted to do a teardown in Wellfleet MA (on the Cape), but local regs wouldn't permit a new house, only modifications to the existing. So he saved a single stud, buried somewhere in the middle of the house.
A dick move, but I will note that the new house wasn't a huge thing - they just wanted a new house, not a modified old one.
BTW, thanks, guys, for using this mysterious "google" to answer for me a fundamental question about my profession. This place is great.
83: Fantastic! Though I would be unhappy with the state of the legal system if such a move survived judicial scrutiny. So can I assume that nobody took it court?
85: Indeed, no court challenge.
He explains in the full story that he directly asked the zoning official (or whoever) how much of the old building had to remain - all of it? most of it? some of it? And so forth.
A proper ordinance would've included some "% of appraised value" language, but maybe this one didn't.
A proper ordinance would've included some "% of appraised value" language, but maybe this one didn't.
The absence of such language doesn't mean a single stud would suffice, of course. It almost certainly wouldn't/doesn't.
Yeah, but if the zoning official is giving him the green light, there you go.
Zoning officials have been known to work around screwed-up ordinances (and maybe even the ones that aren't).
Well, I think the bottom line was that the house wasn't going to raise community opposition. IME, that's the actual threat to ordinance-skirting development/construction. If the neighbors hate it, they'll find a way to fight it; if the neighbors accept it, you have to actually disregard both letter and spirit of the ordinance to get flagged.
Also, Planning Depts. have distressingly little leverage. The bottom line is that, 9 times out of 10, if you get it built, you'll win in the end. There's not a court in the land that will order a completed building demolished because it's noncompliant (barring house-on-the-National-Mall levels of transgression). Believe me, I wish there were - some of these fuckers are so egregious.
Heh. When I was in high school, someone put up a thirteen story building on east 96th street, counting on just that fact -- they only had permission for ten. They fought about it for a while, but the extra three stories came down. (Actual number of stories not guaranteed accurate, but the building did get shorter.)
the building did get shorter.
Wow. Although NYC is a bad-ass when it comes to bldg regulation. People complain, but I don't think they comprehend how bad things could get otherwise.
I don't know how it is in the US, but here in the Netherlands architecture is not only copyrighted, but this copyright also covers derivative works: i.e. you cannot take a picture of a building still under copyright (life + seventy) without paying the original architect or his heirs...