Criticism
Critics claim that, contrary to the bill's claims, the bill will actually harm independent fashion designers. The majority of independent designers do not have the litigation funds to effectively challenge big business should they be accused of copyright infringement. Furthermore, because distributors of accused designs can be penalized as well as the designer, distributors of clothing will become very wary of new designs unless the designer has adequate funds, influence, and power to hire skilled and effective lawyers. Pattern companies frequently utilize prevailing trends; so they too are vulnerable. Because of the legal risks of producing fashion patterns, fewer people will sew their own clothing, and fabric and sewing stores will suffer losses as well. As evidence of the bill's hypocrisy, critics point to how one of the most vocal supporters of the bill, Diane Von Furstenburg, was recently caught copying and distributing a piece of clothing originally designed by an independent Canadian designer. Critics also argue that the industry is already thriving commercially and encourages innovation. They point attention to the concept that originality in fashion design is too insubstantial for copyright law to distinguish protected elements from non-protected elements, and that extending copyright protection would stifle independent designers while giving powerful, big-business fashion houses a near-monopoly.
Read more about this topic: Design Piracy Prohibition Act
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“It is ... pathetic to observe the complete lack of imagination on the part of certain employers and men and women of the upper-income levels, equally devoid of experience, equally glib with their criticism ... directed against workers, labor leaders, and other villains and personal devils who are the objects of their dart-throwing. Who doesn’t know the wealthy woman who fulminates against the “idle” workers who just won’t get out and hunt jobs?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)