From John C. Dvorak, commenting on copyrights, society, and the DCMA:
Fashion designers are not protected from so-called knock-off artists. Font designers get no benefit either. When I hear arguments about how all musicians will give up music and become garbage collectors if piracy isn't stopped, I think of the fashion industry, which has no protection from piracy. Gee, the fashion industry sure hasn't died off because of piracy, has it?
Many of those things, in the UK at least, are protected by something called the design right... in effect you cannot "own" the mechanical details of, say, a kettle but you do have protection against direct copying of its form. The design right lasts for less time than a copyright or patent (10 years), and is fairly vague -- so that competition is possible -- but serves its purpose very well. Interestingly, chips and circuit layouts are covered by this legislation, allowing people to market their own versions of any "black box" as long as the internal details are not identical.
