Fashion

[Barbara in Virginia]

The protection of intellectual property rights has long been a serious problem in both the fashion and interior design industries. Once again, an effort is being launched by fashion designers to address this problem. I would hope that the Council of Fashion Designers of America would develop a Code of Ethics such as the one that we have in the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) . While we have long been in the same legal limbo, there is clarity within ASID. Members found in violation of the Code of Ethics receive corrective action by the Society and/or are expelled. As a retired professional interior designer myself, I wouldn't WANT my name on something lifted from another designer!

Exceprted:

But the designers are determined to make their case heard. Mr. Hernandez, in an e-mail, said: “We spend over $3 million to develop and produce each of our four collections. Our ability to profit from this investment is hurt when our stolen designs are in stores before we can even manufacture them ourselves.

“We understand that most of what is designed is not going to be protected,” he wrote, “but in the instances in which we and other designers come up with something unique and special, we and those designers should be able to benefit from those ideas. Our unique items are what have established Proenza Schouler’s identity. To have our creativity stolen dilutes the value of what we have worked so hard to build

http://runway.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/designers-revisit-copyright-protection/