時尚中的法律、文化與經濟

The Law, Culture, and Economics of Fashion

時尚是當今世界最重要的創意產業之一。它是自我展現方式中最直接的、可見的標籤，時尚創造了一個自我表達的“詞庫”，將個人和社會聯繫在一起。在歐洲，時尚設計被視為時尚的核心，同時被賦予了充分的保護，然而在美國知識產權法律框架下，時尚設計卻缺乏針對抄襲行為的保護。本文將創新中的文化動因看作一種社會實踐，並以其為基礎，圍繞“是否應對時尚設計提供保護”的問題展開討論。人們對參與時尚的渴望，在平日的著裝中已經顯露無遺，它準確地捕捉到了社會生活中極為重要的一面，也同時展現了與他人保持一致的拉力及面向新事物的創新所產生的推力。我們將對原創設計的法律保護所可能帶來的經濟上和文化上的危險作出解釋，並說明為什麼針對高仿複製品的保護才是可行的唯一道路。我們為時尚的消費和形成構建了一個模型，強調潮流中個體區分和共用參與所起到的互補作用。我們的分析，揭示了現行法律制度在保護商標之餘，未能針對時尚設計所遭遇的抄襲行為提供保護，這一制度扭曲了時尚創新，使其原有的表達屬性逐漸消失，而其身份屬性和奢侈屬性則越發明顯。在消費行為具有同樣表述性的領域裡，時尚動因能夠使我們更好地洞悉創新中的動因。我們強調，抄襲和混合兩種行為之間的界線，已經為我們指明了一個往往遭到忽視卻擁有光明前景的知識產權的發展方向。

Fashion is one of the world’s most important creative industries. As the most immediate visible marker of self-presentation, fashion creates vocabularies for self-expression that relate individuals to society. Despite being the core of fashion and legally protected in Europe, fashion design lacks protection against copying under U.S. intellectual property law. This Article frames the debate over whether to provide protection to fashion design within a reflection on the cultural dynamics of innovation as a social practice. The desire to be in fashion — most visibly manifested in the practice of dress — captures a significant aspect of social life, characterized by both the pull of continuity with others and the push of innovation toward the new. We explain what is at stake economically and culturally in providing legal protection for original designs, and why a protection against close copies only is the proper way to proceed. We offer a model of fashion consumption and production that emphasizes the complementary roles of individual differentiation and shared participation in trends. Our analysis reveals that the current legal regime, which protects trademarks but not fashion designs from copying, distorts innovation in fashion away from this expressive aspect and toward status and luxury aspects. The dynamics of fashion lend insight into dynamics of innovation more broadly, in areas where consumption is also expressive. We emphasize that the line between close copying and remixing represents an often underappreciated but promising direction for intellectual property today.