Look Smart

Copying someone’s fashion sense is one thing, but producing knockoff fashion designs is another.   So Senator Charles Schumer of New York has been working with his co-sponsors to craft the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act, which would extend copyright protection to guard against infringement in fashion designs.  The bill, introduced on August 5th, is expected to pass this fall.

The AAFA, or American Apparel & Footwear Association (bearing no relation to the now-struggling franchise that is clothing hipsters everywhere) has been leading lobby efforts to block this bill’s predecessors; it is now fully on board, along with New York’s Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).

For further insight on the back story on this area of copyright infringement legislation, check out Arnold & Porter‘s law firm memo, “The Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act: Fashion Industry Friend or Faux?” by Louis S. Ederer and Maxwell Preston.  The puns don’t end in the title: check out fashion design protection as part of the “legal and cultural ‘fabric'” of the US.