U.S. lawmakers are considering legislation to protect fashion brands from knockoffs, but some believe the proposed rules would hurt both the industry and consumers. Currently, U.S. law does not prohibit copying fashion designs.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), the bill's sponsor, said the U.S. fashion industry is being hurt by knockoffs and is at a disadvantage compared with Europe, where laws protect registered designs for up to 25 years. The proposed law, which has bipartisan support, would protect unique designs for three years.
"Unfortunately our local industry is at a severe disadvantage because greater protections are afforded to designs made overseas than in New York or the United States," Mr. Schumer said of the bill, according to Women's Wear Daily. "Unregulated, high-end knockoffs are hurting the integrity of this industry."
Opponents, however, believe free copying of fashion has long extended sales opportunities across the industry and continually drives innovation.
"Copying helps set trends (you can't know it's a trend until it's been copied) and then helps destroy them -- once a design has been widely copied, the fashion-forward hop on to the next new thing," wrote Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman in the Freakonomics blog in The New York Times. "This is the familiar fashion cycle. What's less obvious is that the absence of copyright makes the process possible. The fashion cycle turns faster, and the industry gets richer -- and creates new designs more frequently."
"The industry is actually working very well today, and there is no compelling reason to change," Kal Raustiala, a law professor at the University of California, told The Toronto Sun, "The point of copyright laws is to ensure that copying doesn't kill creativity. In fashion, we have long seen copying coexist with creativity. Indeed, copying often fosters creativity."
Opponents also fear a rash of lawsuits.
Some fashion designers in recent years have been pushing for more protection after seeing their designs quickly replicated by H&M, Zara, Forever 21 and others. The Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University was opened earlier this month in large part to address the issue.
For the same reasons such laws are applied to books, painting, photography, film and music, proponents claim fashion knockoffs reduce the incentive to create. They also believe those copying will be forced to come up with fresh designs.
"Once former copyists realize that they need to up the design ante ... the culture of copying within the industry will change," said Susan Scafidi, head of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University, to The Toronto Sun. "Consumers will have available a greater variety of inexpensive choices rather than the same old cheap copies."
Discussion Question: Is enabling the copying of fashion designs ultimately healthy or unhealthy for the fashion industry? Is it an incentive or disincentive toward innovation? Generally, are you for or against greater design protections for designers?