And they link to a law paper, "The Piracy Paradox: Innovation and Intellectual Property in Fashion Design" (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=878401) by Kal Raustiala and Christopher Jon Sprigman that says: "Yet a significant empirical anomaly exists: the global fashion industry, which produces a huge variety of creative goods without strong IP protection. Copying is rampant as the orthodox account would predict."
Perhaps what you mean is that you can't claim that a knock-off is from one of the big names in fashion? Because it looks like people copy the designs frequently. Fashion, however, is partly about status, and people attribute status to brands. So even though if a design is similar, people may not value it as high simply because it doesn't have the "right" brand on it.
And they link to a law paper, "The Piracy Paradox: Innovation and Intellectual Property in Fashion Design" (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=878401) by Kal Raustiala and Christopher Jon Sprigman that says: "Yet a significant empirical anomaly exists: the global fashion industry, which produces a huge variety of creative goods without strong IP protection. Copying is rampant as the orthodox account would predict."
Perhaps what you mean is that you can't claim that a knock-off is from one of the big names in fashion? Because it looks like people copy the designs frequently. Fashion, however, is partly about status, and people attribute status to brands. So even though if a design is similar, people may not value it as high simply because it doesn't have the "right" brand on it.