The New York Times has an interesting article on fashion retailer giant Zara. How do you evade the law? You move fast.
Inditex denies that it copies other designers. Yet in The New York Times last March, Alexandra Jacobs described a visit to the new Zara store on Fifth Avenue in New York, where she was reminded of Prada, Alexander Wang, Balmain and many other high-end brands. Christian Louboutin took Inditex to court for selling the company’s signature red-soled shoes but lost, mainly because Inditex takes care to change its designs just enough to evade copyright laws.
Copyright is a type of intellectual property that applies to creative work. It is a legal right that gives exclusive rights to the creator of an original work to use and distribute it. It has to be revised from time to time. The issue with copyright is that it only safeguards the expression of ideas by the creator and not the underlying idea. Works of literature, music or art (barring Photographs) are granted the protection of copyright for a period which spans the creator’s life and 60 years from the year of the author’s demise. Businesses of every type — from e-commerce companies to software, to life science ventures, to production and publishing businesses — have their own histories that come from their founders’ visions and dispositions, historical and geographical factors, market structures and the like. However, despite all the varying points of origin, companies end up having a lot in common. This may be particularly true in case of publishing companies. To learn more here is a guide on start a copywriting business.
Copyright issues include Copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is using works protected by copyright law without prior permission, breaching certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work. With the internet era going on, anything you take off the web is copyrighted.
