U.S. Congress. House. Design Piracy Prohibition Act. 110th Cong., 1st sess., H.R. 2033. (25 April 2007).

This is one piece of legislation proposed to protect fashion designs from piracy. This Design Piracy Prohibition Act would basically give fashion designs protection for three years after the application for registration is submitted. Within this act, the terms fashion design, design, and apparel are defined so as to create a definition of what can actually be protected under this bill. The reason these are defined within this bill is the ambiguous nature of these words. Without a clear definition, there would be way too many interpretations of the clauses of the Design Piracy Prohibition Act. The bill also states the terms for submitting a design for copyright protection. Basically, any rights to protection are lost if the design is not submitted within three months after the design is made public. The bill also briefly lists the monetary penalties for any pirates if found guilty of copyright infringement.

This bill is an important source for any paper on fashion copyright since it provides an example of the types of legislation that would supply design protection. Even though this bill has not gone through, many of the Design Piracy Bills follow this basic structure for fashion copyright. Therefore, this source provides an example of how effective bills can be in providing protection. In addition, many sources reference this bill and its contents. So, it is useful to have the actual bill and its wording to look back upon and analyze as a primary source. The bill basically amends title 17 in the United States Code to provide for fashion design protection. By looking at how proponents of fashion copyright will protect fashion designs, I can decide, within my paper, whether these laws are beneficial or effective enough to even bother enacting. Thomas, the site where this bill is located, also provides a list of sponsors for this bill. There are only fourteen sponsors, which creates suspicion as to how effective or plausible this bill may actually be. Information like this surrounding pieces of legislation make bills useful sources.

     This act is an addition to the United States Copyright Law. The addition is chapter 10 which is "Digital Audio Recording Devices and Media." The act is broken up into four subchapters A, B, C and D.

     Subchapter A gives definitions of terms that are used within the act. The terms are clearly defined so that they can be used within the explaination of the act itself with little confusion. For example, A digital audio copied recording is defined as "a reproduction in a digital recording format of a digital musical recording, whether that reproduction is made directly from another digital musical recording or indirectly from a transmission."

     Subchapter B gets into the main point of the act stating what can and cannot be copied. This section states that it is illegal to import, manufacture, or distribute any digital audio recording device that does not comply with the Serial Copy Management System or any other similar system. The device must also meet the standards set by the Secretary of Commerce. Finally, digital music recordings cannot be encoded with inaccurate information.

     Subchapter C deals with royalty payments. It explains who pays them, how much is payed under certain conditions , and who receives these payments. According to this section, the amount of royalty payment for each recording device is two percent of the transfer price. Also only the first person to manufacture or import and distribute a device is required to pay the royalty. A royalty tax of 8 dollars is required for each digital recording machine. The royalty tax is paid by the manufacturers of the digital media devices and then distributed to copyright owners whose music is being copied. Because of this tax, copyright owners cannot claim copyright infringement against the use of audio recording devices in the home.

     Subchapter D explains the arbitration for violations regarding the terms set up in the previous sections.

     This act gave guidance to the music industry but it did not include computers because they are not considered digital audio recording devices. This poses a problem because of the explosion of the internet which occured in subsequent years.