Speaker 1: Well, now it's time for our daily Bloomberg Law Brief,
Speaker 1: exploring legal issues in the news, and Today, Bloomberg Law
Speaker 1: host dun Grasso discusses the Supreme Court decision in Star
Speaker 1: Athletic of the Varsity Brands, which will have major ramifications
Speaker 1: for copyright law in America. She speaks with Craig Whitney,
Speaker 1: a partner at Frankfurt Curnet, Klein and Seltz Craig. The
Speaker 1: majority opinion was written by Justice Clarence Thomas. Explain his reasoning,
Speaker 1: please sure, Well, they took a large part from the
Speaker 1: Copyright Act directly and adhered closely to the language of
Speaker 1: the Act, which was actually fairly admirable, and ruled that
Speaker 1: the designs on the cheerleading uniforms that issue were protectable
Speaker 1: under the Copyright Act because the Copyright Act protects pgs works,
Speaker 1: pictorial graphics cultural works that are part of useful articles
Speaker 1: if they can be separately identified independent of those useful
Speaker 1: articles and are independently eligible for protection. So that was
Speaker 1: that was his stated reasoning. Uh, And that is how
Speaker 1: in this case the designs that issue are at least
Speaker 1: eligible for copyright protection. So Justice Stephen Brier was joined
Speaker 1: by Justice Anthony Kennedy, and he couldn't seem to get
Speaker 1: past the fact that Varsity registered pictures of uniforms, not
Speaker 1: the designs on them. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: his dissent. I think he was concerned with the potential
Speaker 1: breath of the majority's decision. The majority held as I
Speaker 1: mentioned that these designs were eligible for protection, and Justice
Speaker 1: Briars looked at the underlying copper registrations, which are pictures
Speaker 1: of designs on cheerleading uniforms, and thought, well, then, really,
Speaker 1: anything could in theory be eligible for protection if you
Speaker 1: just take a picture of it and registered the copyright office.
Speaker 1: How important is this decision to the fashion industry. I
Speaker 1: think it's pretty important for two reasons. Um. The main
Speaker 1: reason is that I think there was a perception in
Speaker 1: the industry that there was limited protection for fashion designs.
Speaker 1: And I don't know that that was an accurate perception
Speaker 1: or not, but I think it was a prevailing view
Speaker 1: of a lot of designers and a lot of companies
Speaker 1: that operate on the basis of being able to take
Speaker 1: other designs and repackage them. That's Craig Waitney, a partner
Speaker 1: at Frankfurt Current in Klein and self speaking at the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law host during Grosso. You can listen to Bloomberg
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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio Now. Among top legal stories from Bloomberg Law,
Speaker 1: Federal Appeals Court will now decide whether to overturn a
Speaker 1: lower court's order partially blocking President Trump's revised travel ban.
Speaker 1: Government lawyers argued the executive order affecting six mostly Muslim
Speaker 1: nations is not religious discrimination because it applies to all
Speaker 1: citizens from those countries. They also said that every president
Speaker 1: for thirty years has invoked executive powers to suspend the
Speaker 1: inference of some immigrants on national security grounds. And this
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