The Senate is considering a bill that will protect designers from having their creations copied by knockoff companies. Senator Schumer, the driving force behind it, is trying to extend copyright protection to fashion.

‘Designers spend countless hours doing and redoing, testing, creating, thinking, and then some counterfeiter comes along and just takes it away,’ said Mr. Schumer. ‘It’s plain and simple.’–reports The New York Times.

If that happens, I wonder, how would the likes of Steven Madden or Jessica Simpson survive?

Steve Madden

What do you think about this? If you are enjoying the benefits of high street creations, which allow you to pay $300 less for a relatively identical style, would you be against this law? Or do you see a problem with what amounts to intellectual theft? Or do you think it would be hard to make the argument that a knockoff is a knockoff if some little detail is changed? It’s a tough one–give us your opinions in the forum!