Fashion Piracy- Annotated Bibliography

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Hedrick, L. “Tearing Fashion Design Protection Apart at the Seams[dagger].” Washington and Lee Law Review 65.1 (2008): 215. Print.

             

Fashion copyright has been pushed through Congress many times, but according to Hedrick, a successful bill has yet to come through, and therefore why no adequate laws have been passed. Congress must be careful with enacting laws about fashion design protection because it could become the model for expansion of the current intellectual property laws. Under the current intellectual property (IP) mechanisms, patents, trade dress, trademark, and copyright are incapable of providing protections for fashion design. Clothing is seen as a “useful article” and is treated as purely functional; therefore making fashion designs categorically excluded copyright registration and protection. There is now proposed protection under the Design Piracy Bills, backed by the CFDA (Council for Fashion Designers of America) that would give a designers the rights to make, sell, import, and trade the fashion design. Hendricks does not support this bill because of its drawbacks and makes the argument that a law such as this under the American legal system would bring about a number of senseless lawsuits. Also pointed out are the numerous expenses that would burden designers from lawsuits to protect clothing with a limited shelf life.

Hendrick’s article is useful for history given on the subject as well as information on current fashion copyright laws in Japan and European Union. While comparing the laws of these two systems with the American legal system doesn’t necessarily correlate, having background on the subject in other countries could strengthen an argument for the need for fashion copyright laws. While there is a clear argument in this article, the information seems to be on the objective side in the way the facts are presented. This source will be useful for the layout of the current proposed law, background of fashion copyright, and arguments for faults in the Design Piracy Bills.