House Bill [H.R.2033.IH], and Senate Bill [S.1957.IS] both titled “Design Piracy Prohibition Act” and introduced April 25, 2007 and August 2, 2007 respectively are taking aim at fashion counterfeiters.
The introduced legislation now provides protection for a garments entire design, and is not limited to certain creative aspects such as a logo or fabric pattern. The proposed legislation eliminates the old penalties of $50,000 or $1 per copy, and imposes harsher penalties of $250,000 or $5 per copy (whichever penalty is higher). The legislation also provides 3 years of legal protection.
Fashion designers have been struggling to convince lawmakers to provide fashion designs the same protections afforded other articles of intellectual property, such as books, movies, plays, and computer code. While this fight to bring fashion designs under the copyright umbrella has been ongoing for years, this bill seems to be a welcome step towards the end goal.
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