Hearing Memorandum:
July 13, 2011 Memorandum Regarding the Subcommittee hearing on H.R.
____, the "Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act": Friday,
July 15, 2011, at 10:00 am in 2141 Rayburn HOB.
Read the entire Memorandum.
Testimony/Statements/Comments before the U.S. House Subcommittee
on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet - Legislative Hearing on
the Innovative Design Protection & Piracy Prevention Act:
Lazaro Hernandez, designer,
Proenza Schouler:
Good morning Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Watt
and other Members of the Subcommittee. I am pleased to be here today to testify
in support of the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prohibition Act, or
ID3PA, on behalf of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). CFDA is
a leading trade organization representing the American fashion industry. Our members are prominent household names and
primarily up and coming talent. The vast majority - over 85% - are small
businesses. These small businesses are creating jobs across the country as
fashion has grown to a $340 billion industry in the U.S. The CFDA also counts among its fashion
constituents publishing, communications, retail, manufacturers and production
whose success is contingent on the success of designers. ...
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Jeannie Suk, Professor
of Law, Harvard Law School:
Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Watt, and Members
of the Subcommittee, I am Jeannie Suk, Professor of Law at Harvard Law
School. Thank you for this opportunity
to testify about the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act
("IDPPPA"). My remarks draw on my
ongoing research with Professor Scott Hemphill of Columbia Law School on law
and innovation in the fashion industry.
Along with my testimony, I submit our Stanford Law Review article, The
Law, Culture and Economics of Fashion.
We have also written on the Act's predecessors: two iterations of the
Design Piracy Prohibition Act, and the
Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act introduced in the Senate
last Term. I submit one these articles,
published in the Wall Street Journal. ...
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Professor Christopher
Sprigman, University of Virginia School of Law
/ Professor Kal Raustiala, University of California at
Los Angeles School of Law:
As law professors who have studied innovation and
competition in the fashion industry, we write in opposition to the Innovative Design
Protection and Piracy Prevention Act (IDPPPA), which, if passed, would for the
first time in American history extend copyright protections to fashion designs.
The IDPPPA limits the scope of potential liability to
garments that are "substantially identical" to original garments protected
under the Act. That is a narrower standard than has been proposed in previous bills.
We nonetheless think that, on balance, the IDPPPA represents bad policy and may
ultimately prove more harmful than helpful. ...
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Kurt Courtney, on
behalf of the American Apparel & Footwear Association:
Mr. Chairman, in 2006, you introduced the Design
Piracy Prohibition Act (DPPA), which sought to offer new copyright protection
for original fashion designs. As AAFA's
legal team evaluated the bill, we wholeheartedly understood the narrow problem
the legislation was trying to solve. But
we fundamentally disagreed with its overly broad definitions, which industry
experts and legal counsel feared would have opened a Pandora's box of
litigation that would have been detrimental to the industry.
At that time, Mr. Chairman, we expressed these concerns
to you and you challenged us to help develop a more targeted bill to protect
original fashion designs and not increase the prevalence of lawsuits in our
industry.
So we went to work.
In conjunction with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA),
we worked with your office and New York Senator Chuck Schumer to develop the
Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act. This legislation represents a targeted
approach that will solve this narrow design piracy problem without exposing any
innocent actor in the fashion industry to confusing rules and frivolous legal
claims. ...
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