Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Beyonce's Bikini Infringing On Copyrights?
Techdirt: "Michael Scott points us to a story over at IPKat about how singer Beyonce (or, rather, her label, Sony) is in trouble in Germany for infringing on the copyright of a designer due to a bikini she wore in a video. Seriously. In the US, we (for the time being, at least) still don't allow copyrights on clothing design, but apparently in Germany they feel differently about that sort of thing."
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6 comments:
I feel that as a whole, this whole case is stupid. It's a bikini. Not even the same bikini. There are other things in this world that eserve our work and attention. That being said, I feel that Beyonce is in the right. The Bikini is NOT the same. While, as the article points out, they seem to be inspired by the same idea, here is no way of proving who had the idea first, but the idea of copywrighting a design is crazy. Its like putting a copyright on realistic style paintings.
If this case actually goes through and the charges for infringing on copyrights are proven to be right, it opens the door for so many other designers to say that their designs were inspiration for things featured in the well publicized entertainment of the United States. This case is clearly bullshit, not only because both the bikinis are similar but not at all copied (although what is fashion if not reinvention of the clothes you see on other people?) but also because Beyonce is an American singing sensation, and designers endorse their clothes through celebrities all the time. If i was this designer I would rather benefit from this situation or question the designer of the bikini itself not Sony who is clearly not liable or responsible for nay of the decisions that went into choosing that ensemble.
I don't think that it is the worst thing in the world to have copyright laws for clothing. However, I think that they need to be more strict about sticking to the "actual expression" rule. Just because something looks similar to another doesn't mean that one is infringing on the other. I also think that it is ridiculous that Beyonce or Sony could be held responsible for this. The creator of the Bikini is the only one who should even potentially have a problem. However, the bikini, the video, and the artist wearing it. Were never in Germany where the law exists. I think that it is completely ludicrous for this case to go through. Just because the video was shown in Germany does not mean that the clothing in the video are now in their legal jurisdiction. I could understand if they want to ban the video, thats their business. However, they have no right (in my mind) to take legal action against Sony.
Copyrights has been big issue for me. In my personel experience, When I was production manager in '4.48 Psychosis' which was written by Sarah Kane in my home university I had copy right problem working with Phillip Zarrili who was Director and also Prof. University of Exeter, UK.
He asked me to get license permission from Sarah Kane agency and he said that if I could not get license permission, he would not play the show. Finally, I got license permission and paid royalty but it was first happening in my school.
After then I was always wonder that how much extent can it be copyright. Especially internationl case it will be more complicative because we don't know every countries' law or politics. Neverthless I love beyonce, In this case, I think beyonce should pay rolaty.
Wow. This is kind of ridiculous. Art is something so subjective, it draws from so many different influences and people, it's hard to say what exactly is worthy of a suit of law, when these things aren't even replicas of each other. Maybe the designer had seen the German bikini, and was very interested. What actually sounds like what might've happened is that the German designer wanted some more pubicity for his bikini, thus is making a huge fuss. Yeah, it's not the best way to do it, but this is a way to get your name out into the public.
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