Instead of using someone elses designs... come up with your own.. check this video out.. Bob makes it look so easy... Check out the one with the butterfly totally amazing..

come on...have any of you actually read the propsed law.  this is good for the industry...us small designers don't have the money to fight the big guys who have no creative idea at all. the best they can do is send people shopping and bring clothes back to their office for deconstruction and reporduction at our creative expense.  Plus for all of us do it yourself types this law will not effect us.  we can stillmake what we want for our consumption.  the law only stops those who profit from other people's ideas.  stealing is not right.

Argggg! Not this again!!
When I first went to Design School, they told all us young designers the same thing! Blah blah blah!!
That our designs should "only" be INSPIRED by another designer but not ripped-off! I thought to myself that my Design teacher was wearing a Louis Delolio blouse, when I found out she had made it herself! Why? I don't know...but her chat about the Privacy Law was just there to scare us. 
We own sewing machines. This is never going to pass. 
And I heard about this in 1988!! 
Please.

okay, i don;t know about ya'll but that means anything i make that is inspired by someone else is illegal. and thats the reason i got into sewing! because i can't pay 0 for a size S dress that requires maybe an hour or so of labor.

#1, i can;t afford that, #2 i'm a lot bigger than a size S

if they don;t want people to feel the need to do knockoffs in order to feel stylish then tell them to make thier fashion available TO THE PEOPLE!

fashion is not a privlege

I think everyone is missing the BIG picture. This is just another example of the haves trying to suppress the havenots. They know there are more of us than them and if they steal from us its ok. But let one of us steal or "copy" them and then its our collective asses. Big toy biz did to the small guy with the lab testing law just a little while ago. And factory farms killed the little guy with all the hoopla about contaminated everything.

They've knocked out all the childrens wear with CPSIA and now they'er coming after us this has been an issue since 1978 and they continue to waste time and tax dollars on things that are arbitrary when we need to focus on bigger things please write you representation.

I think copyrighting ideas of fashion would be similar to copywriting painting or writing techniques--it's an art form, and people draw on the ideas of others, just like in other art. Labels and specific pieces of clothing should be protected, but protecting ideas seems counter productive. It's fair to copyright a story, but copyrighting a type of character or plot device would be silly.

I first heard about this issue my freshman year of college.  six and a half years later, they're still arguing about this.  What does that tell you?  While I understand the desire to protect an artist's ideas, there is no way this bill will past into law.  #1, every home sewer in America who has any talent with a sewing machine will design something based on a 'designer' product.  #2, those 'big box' stores have private label lines which totally copy runway looks.  Those corporations are not going to let the politicians get rid of a billion dollar moneymaker which relies on the 'trickle down' theory.(I know, sad that's the way our government works, but it's the truth.)

I agree with the comment above.  Some of these designers can't see the forest from the trees anymore.  I mean even from the pictured example above, it's quite obvious that the second blouse was inspired from the first.  After all, that's what the fashion industry is, a trickle down hierarchy.  It starts with an extravagant garment sold at expensive boutiques and then eventually a similar concept is sold to the masses at the 'big box' stores.

Granted, somebody trying to sell a 'Luigi Vuitton' or a 'Couch' is obviously in the wrong and needs to be stopped.  (And yes, I have actually seen the above examples) But really this argument seems to be taking away from real matters at hand, aka, instead of using that money for expensive lawyers, buy a child in need some shoes...

I have mixed feelings about this issue, honestly. On the one hand, I understand the desire to have your ideas protected, and I also understand that the counterfeit industry is a really nasty business, full of child labor and other icky things. 

On the other hand, I also understand that when you allow designers to copyright their ideas, you really start getting into tricky territory. After all, there is no such thing as a "new" idea. Every idea that a fashion designer has is directly connected to the things that have come before. Today's fashions take elements of the old and find new ways to use them. That's how fashion works.

That being said, I think that they should be able to crack down on counterfeit (items that are identical or nearly identical to the original and claim to be the original),  but not imitation. Imitation items are always obviously not the original, and there shouldn't be a law saying that you can't make something SIMILAR. If making something similar to someone else's work is copyright infringement, then the fashion industry will basically be put at a stand still with people who are too busy suing each other to make cloths. 

Focus on the issues: child labor, icky working conditions, etc. 

Don't be babies about other companies using designs that are similar to yours. Unless they stole your pattern, they aren't doing anything wrong.