Copyright’s Expanding Negative Space in Fashion: Is Bigger Better?

Speaker: David Tan (Professor, National University of Singapore Faculty of Law)

Hallowed doctrines in copyright law such as human authorship, idea-expression dichotomy and fair use can significantly limit the legal protection that fashion creations enjoy, especially with the present use of artificial intelligence to assist in the production of fashion designs. Shrinking copyright protection in the fashion industry is not necessarily a bad thing. This lecture suggests that the leading luxury or Veblen brands will continue to be trendsetters in an enlarged playing field with more entrepreneurs and fast fashion retailers. With flocking, comes differentiation. With differentiation, we beget new non-infringing expressions and transformative adaptations.

Professor David Tan is the Co-Director of the Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & the Law and Head (Intellectual Property) of the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business at the Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore (NUS Law). David holds PhD, LLB, and BCom degrees from the University of Melbourne and an LLM from Harvard. At NUS Law, David pioneered courses in Entertainment Law, Fashion Law and Freedom of Speech. His areas of research cover personality rights, copyright, trademarks, freedom of expression, and tort law. He has published over 100 books, articles, comments, and book chapters since joining NUS in 2008. He co-edited Fashion and Intellectual Property with Jeanne Fromer and Dev Gangjee, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2025. David is also an accomplished fashion photographer whose works have appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, GQ, Vanity Fair and Time.

Moderator: Taorui Guan, Assistant Professor & Deputy Director of the Law and Technology Centre, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law

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For inquiries, please contact Ms. Grace Chan at mcgrace@hku.hk / 3917 4727.