In the Digital Age, however, fashion shows are broadcast much easier and faster. Fashion designers create new fashion design, borrowing some elements of original fashion design from the public domain. The infringers immediately copy and send the fashion design to their manufacturer. As a result, the knockoffs based on the fashion design are sold within
a few weeks of disclosure. Such conduct results in the infringers benefiting from the same fashion design at the same time as, or even before the original innovator. Consequently, consumers might think that the fashion products from the original innovator were out of fashion as they entered the market later than the infringers. In the fashion industry, being second can be a deathblow. Because fashion products are short-lived, one month later can make a huge difference. The value of the fashion design is diminished by the copying because of the “old” association with the original design. The “old” or “out of fashion” stigma is fatal to a fashion design, and the association with that stigma harms the reputation of the fashion designer. Society normally relies on “Market Signals” to allocate resources. If a fashion design is considered “old”, this fashion design can no longer function as a market signal to attract investments for further production. The value of the fashion design is diminished by the fast fashion infringers. After the fashion design is published, the original fashion designers cannot protect their fashion design because it has already gone into the public domain. Fashion innovators are unlikely to want to create new things and extended the public domain of fashion design because his or her design would get almost no protection after the first publication. As we have already known, fashion design is the center of the fashion industry. Therefore, the entire fashion industry might be harmed by the expiration of the resource in the public domain of fashion design. This is how the fashion design falls into the tragedy of the commons after the appearance of the Internet threat.