Joy for cheerleaders as US court says uniforms are copyrightable
A US appeals court has ruled that the designs of cheerleader uniforms are eligible for copyright protection, but a dissenting opinion said more clarity is needed from higher bodies to sort out the “mess” of copyright law with respect to designs on garments.
In a 2-1 decision on Wednesday, August 19, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that the fabric designs of cheerleader uniforms produced by Varsity Brands can be separated conceptually from the utilitarian dress designs another cheerleading uniform.
The dispute emerged after Varsity sued clothing company Star Athletica at the US District Court for the Western District of Tennessee claiming that cheerleader uniforms sold by Star Athletica were “substantially similar” to its own.
But the district court rejected the claim, stating that “Varsity’s designs are not physically or conceptually separable from the utilitarian function of a cheerleading uniform because ... [they] make the garment they appear on recognisable as cheerleading uniforms.”
The district court, which accepted Star Athletica’s motion for a summary judgment to dismiss the claim in 2014, added that cheerleader uniforms were not eligible for copyright protection.
Varsity Brands then appealed against the judgment at the sixth circuit.
Judge Karen Moore, writing the majority opinion, said the graphic features are “more like fabric design than dress design” and therefore didn’t serve a utilitarian purpose.
She concluded that Varsity owned the copyright to the designs and remanded the case back to the district court.
But Judge David McKeague dissented from the majority opinion.
He said there is no conceptual separability and that Varsity’s designs are not copyrightable.
“Clothing provides many functions, but a uniform at its core identifies its wearer as a member of a group. It follows that the stripes, braids, and chevrons on a cheerleading uniform are integral to its identifying function,” he added.
McKeague concluded that the “law in this area is a mess” and that it requires clarity from either Congress or the US Supreme Court on “copyright law with respect to garment design”.
Gloria Phares, of counsel at law firm Hoffman Marshall Strong, said the question in the case concerned a “fairly straightforward set of facts: whether the fabric design used to make a cheerleading uniform was copyrightable”.
“Even if the uniform has a utilitarian purpose, the fabric design on the uniform, if it meets the Copyright Act’s low level of originality (as the court held it did), is as protectable as an original fabric design on any other garment,” she added.
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