Fashion Design and Copyrightby EDWARD LÓPEZ Should fashion designs be eligible for copyrights? When I listen to people talk about this issue, many of the same interesting arguments come up. These people know about designer knockoffs and feel that something is not quite fair about them. Yet they also view copyists as moving innovation along in the fashion world. Copying releases new fashions from the small circles of their origins to the wider marketplace; it translates designs from abstract experimentation on the catwalk to concrete wearability on the sidewalk. Copying thus plays a vital market role in fashion. And so, in my admittedly small and biased sample, a typical conversation about fashion copyright invariably trends toward a reluctant opposition. The issue arises because after a century of relegating fashion designs to the wilderness of intellectual property law, Washington seems poised to begin domesticating the fashion industry. With Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as lead sponsor, the Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act (S.3278) was introduced last August. Design protection bills have been introduced routinely since the 1970s. Yet only in recent years has the cause gained significant legislative momentum. Since 2005 about a dozen precursors to the current bill have been introduced in the House and Senate. A slate of hearings has harvested the views of academics, designers, and celebrity witnesses. The current bill—pruned by numerous drafts and political-legal deals, plus a detailed review by the U.S. Copyright Office—was a honed legislative compromise designed to win majorities in both chambers in a postelection congressional logrolling frenzy.