Copyright protection for fashion designs reintroduced in Congress

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: July 22, 2009 6:44:46 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Copyright protection for fashion designs  
reintroduced in Congress

[Note:  This item comes from friend Esme Vos.  DLH]

Copyright protection for fashion designs reintroduced in Congress
22 July 09
By Esme Vos
<http://www.shopplr.com/2009/07/copyright-protection-for-fashion-designs-reintroduced-in-congress/ 
>
Don’t Congressmen have better things to do? William Delahunt (D-MA)  
has reintroduced legislation called the Design Piracy Prohibition Act  
(H.R. 2196), which extends copyright protection to fashion designs in  
clothing and accessories. There are several problems with this piece  
of legislation:

(1) It takes time and money to register a design and to go after  
infringers. So although proponents claim it will protect young  
designers from having their designs poached by large fashion  
companies, in reality, it won’t. Young designers don’t have enough  
money to keep registering their designs or prosecuting infringers.  
They will also have to clear their designs first with copyright  
lawyers. Imagine that - lawyers getting into fashion design!

What this law will do, if passed, is to allow large well-known  
designer brands that have big legal departments and lots of money to  
terrorize young designers. Although proponents claim that this will  
prevent people from copying, the truth is that well-known brands such  
as Louis Vuitton already go after counterfeiters, not just in the US  
but around the world. Why then do we need this law?

(2) The Congressman who sponsored this bill has no idea whatsoever  
that fashion designers have been copying since the beginning of time.  
Nothing is original. Those Vionnet gowns from the 1920s that look like  
Greek dresses?

Now take a look at the clothes sold in any year. In one season,  
designers are channeling the 1950s so you see dresses that look like  
Christian Dior’s postwar New Look. Next season, they’re into the  
French-Deauville look (that means they are “inspired” by Chanel).  
Another year they’re channeling the late 1960s and making safari  
jackets which Yves Saint Laurent “pioneered” (of course, he copied it  
from the real safari jacket which men wore decades before). This year,  
the designers are in a 1980s mood and that means they’ve raided the  
old lookbooks of Thierry Mugler.

The fashion industry would DIE if this law were passed. We’ll end up  
dressed in flour sacks, but I’m sure someone will copyright that  
design and then we’ll just have to walk around naked (now the thought  
of that should terrorize Congress into killing this bill).

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