Copy This?

Until this week,when it used an unauthorised image of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca,wearing a trench coat (not a Burberry) on its Facebook page. The image was quickly brought to the attention of Bogart’s family and estate that still maintains all publicity rights,and Burberry was sued.

Burberry may have made an unwitting mistake; it has battled a copyright infringement for its signature checks itself (so much so that fashionistes refuse to wear their checks because they may be assumed to be fake).

Lifting photos of celebrities has been quite de rigeur for us. There are a few mid-level beauty salons that use pictures of Kareena Kapoor,Katrina Kaif and Vidya Balan on their marquee. These are actors who would charge up to Rs 1 crore in endorsements otherwise. Actor Rahul Bose forgave a wedding portal advertisement for using his image as the ideal bachelor — he probably was happy with the compliment.

I remember working at another newspaper a decade ago that wanted to use a semi nude image of Nina Manuel for its own advertising campaign. It was shot by Sumeet Chopra for his calendar,she stood sideways like a skinny lamp post,covering her topless torso with one hand. Our slogan for the fashion supplement would have wickedly read: ‘Who’s afraid of anorexia?’ But when Chopra asked for a fee,the editor muttered in disbelief and dropped the idea. Taking my sensational caption with it.

Indian fashion houses have long battled copycats in vain. Recently,Tarun Tahiliani had sued fellow designer and FDCI member Reynu Tandon for using his prints. But the judiciary,he says,is ill-equipped to handle artistic copyrights.

This isn’t entirely untrue in the US either. It may be the land of lawsuits,but its recent judgment of the historic Christian Louboutin versus Yves Saint Laurent case has me baffled. YSL created a red shoe with a red bottom and Louboutin filed a lawsuit in April 2011 stating that the former violated his trademark,and requested an order to stop sales of the said YSL shoe. Only this week,an appeals court granted him the sole copyright of red soles,but with a silly loophole: unless it had a red upper,like the YSL shoe did. Both parties are foolishly celebrating victory.

Designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee relied on his business acumen to tackle the fake market. He began to sell his ready-to-wear saris at a ridiculously low Rs 10,000. Not only does he reach out to more customers,he also knows that it’s impossible to make a fine sari for less,designer or not.

“God is a communist,” he smiles at his own game. Incidentally,‘Sabyasachi’,one of the names for Arjuna,means ‘ambidextrous’ or ‘the smartest one’.

namratanow@gmail.com