Can fashion be copyrighted?
Posted by Leah on Sep 13, 2006
The NY Times ran an article earlier this week about copyright laws and how they apply to fashion. Since I’ve written about copying a couple of times now, I was very interested to read about some of the legal issues. The article talks about clothing designs being copied, but the same issues apply to jewelry.
Apparently, a bill (which is not expected to pass) is going to Congress that would allow designers to copyright their designs and provide some legal protection against people making inexpensive knock-offs.
I have no idea how they plan to enforce this, even if it does pass, given that so much of design (in clothing as well as jewelry) is influenced by current trends, and also given that so many millions of designs have already been created at one time or another. It seems like it would be very hard to prove that a design was truly original. I think it is a nice idea to provide some protection for designers, though.
I can’t find a link to the article at the moment (and you have to be a member to read the Times online) but I’m curious to see where this goes.
