The bill, if signed into law in its current form, would add a new §399-mm to the State’s General Business Law to require that any fashion company with more than $100 million in “annual worldwide gross receipts” disclose on its website “its environmental and social due diligence policies, processes and outcomes, including significant real or potential adverse environmental and social impacts and disclosure targets for prevention and improvement.”
The effect is something like an accountability value added tax, passing disclosure and remediation along the supply chain as goods mature from “raw material to final production.” A compliant company would have to address not merely the environmental impact issues implicit in the name of the bill but information on workforce wages of suppliers and the disclosing company’s “approach for incentivizing supplier performance on workers’ rights…”
The penalty for noncompliance would be a fine of up to two percent of annual global revenues of $450 million dollars or more—not mere profits but revenues, and not simply revenues in New York but total worldwide revenues, regardless of profitability. The New York State attorney general would be charged with enforcement, but private citizens could also start lawsuits. Fines paid would go to a new “community benefit fund” administered by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and would be used for “environmental benefit projects that directly and verifiably benefit environmental justice communities.
The intentions of the Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act are clearly noble, but it is hard to read the text of the current bill without seeing it as a high-minded legislative scold. Read the full article for some key points.
In my last post, I reported on my conversation in London with Simon Crompton, who runs the website Permanent Style (www.permanentstyle.com), which is devoted to the world of bespoke (custom-made) menswear. We discussed elements of style for men, but when the conversation moved to the topic of how a website proprietor protects his own intellectual property, Mr. Crompton had some decidedly pragmatic ideas.
Permanent Style is authored almost entirely by Mr. Crompton, who, last year, was finally able to devote his full professional time to it. The site features the latest developments in bespoke, from tailoring to shirtmaking to shoemaking, around the world. It is supported by advertising, and it also promotes its own limited line of products, from surprisingly stylish watch caps (ski caps) to Oxford shirting for readers to provide their bespoke shirtmakers. Prominent on the site are reviews of makers of bespoke clothing and shoes, with Mr. Crompton serving as live mannequin and photographer’s model throughout, reporting on each step of the process.
I asked Mr. Crompton what kind of legal protections he employs for his work. Because his writing originates in Britain and not the USA, he is spared the unique (and to those of us who have done it for clients or ourselves, often frustrating) requirement of registering his copyrights. His pragmatic view: “It isn’t as if it is a novel or song lyrics. Anything on the site obviously comes from me, and no one is going to run out and say I’m Simon, I wrote this.”
As for protecting his brand, he holds to an equally pragmatic approach: be first out, keep a solid reputation, and you win. “The site has been up just over ten years, and it is well-known. That’s a very good position in the world relative to others who might be trying to establish themselves.”
Mr. Crompton also noted a key advantage to prose authored in Internet time: “What I write is so fast-changing, and there is such a high volume of it that it’s not that easy to protect, but at the same time, there is not much virtue in somebody copying. I already have the biggest traffic. If someone were to start copying my articles, that would never generate much traffic for him. He would still have to attract readers and then subscribers by offering something different, and unless that should happen, I would always do better on search engine optimization.”
That goes to the heart of a key debate in copyright circles—what utility is legal protection in a world in which almost everyone can read just about anything, and anyone can publish just about whatever he or she chooses to write, on platforms from Twitter on up? Registering the copyright, to say nothing of suing to stop infringement, can look old-fashioned in the context of a business (and social-media) model that values “reach,” often by free access, and loyalty for the generation of revenue more than it does traditional legal protections.
In short, Mr. Compton is conducting a very contemporary business to promote many very traditional crafts. If by so doing he helps craftsmanship flourish, we can only commend him-even if the model depends more on lawyers reading about dressing well (and, we hope, attempting to do so) than on offering legal advice. When it comes to what we do, however, lawyers can only continue to recommend to their clients that they reach out and consult with their counsel whenever making important decisions about their intellectual property. If you do not make these decisions yourself, the marketplace will very likely make them for you.
What do the Special Prosecutor and the New York State Attorney General have in common? If you answered fake social media accounts and social media bots inflating followers, likes, tweets and retweets, you would be correct.
At the end of January, 2019, Attorney General Letitia James announced she had reached a settlement with Devumi LLC, which she described as “the first in the country” to find that selling fake followers and likes on social media is illegal deception and using stolen identities from real people is illegal impersonation. The Attorney General’s investigation began under James’ predecessor in response to an article posted online by The New York Times on January 27, 2018, entitled “The Follower Factory”. That article is the best source to understand the underlying facts.
Devumi operated a business through which individuals who wished to appear more popular and influential could purchase views on YouTube, plays on SoundCloud, endorsements on LinkedIn, as well as followers, likes and retweets on Twitter and other social media platforms. According to the Times, Devumi’s customers included the model Kathy Ireland, the former pro-football player Ray Lewis and even the Treasury Secretary’s wife. Engagement with the platforms was effected by using computer operated fake accounts, generally referred to as “bots”. In some instances, the social media personas of real people were “cloned” to create multiple accounts in multiple languages to create thousands of other accounts used to promote products or services, so-called “sock puppet” accounts. According to the Times, Devumi supplied customers with over 200 million followers, using 3.5 million accounts.
Reaction to the article was swift and resulted in Devumi ceasing operations when the publicity “caused a major decline in its sales”, according to the Attorney General. But Devumi is hardly the only entity or individual conducting similar questionable operations. A simple search for “Buy Followers” on Google will lead to links for many offering followers or likes for sale. The search is so common that Google has pre-programmed questions and answers related to the search as well as related searches targeted to specific social media platforms.
Fraud and deception related to influence on social media platforms are not limited to purchasing followers and likes. According to an article posed on-line by The Atlantic in December 2018, wanna-be professional “influencers” are also feigning sponsorship deals on-line to convince brands of their credibility as influencers—what the article aptly calls “faking it until you make it”.
While many athletes and performers have entered into lucrative endorsement deals with brands for many years, the influence they sell has been earned through a record of actual accomplishment in their professional fields. Roger Federer, for example, can endorse coffee machines and watches because he justly has earned fame based on long years of actual accomplishment playing professional tennis. The same cannot necessarily be said of professional “influencers” whose only claim to fame is an Instagram following that may or may not have been manufactured. So, when it comes to social media “influencers”, the watch word should be: let the buyer beware.
Readers of our blog have probably noticed my interest in custom-made clothing. There is a professional reason: because we represent so many different brands of ready-made clothing, wearing something more esoteric allows me not to show favorites.
For over ten years, Simon Crompton has been reporting online, in his website Permanent Style (www.permanentstyle.com), about the refined world of custom-made menswear—which, in British English, is known as bespoke (as in, asked for in advance). Mr. Crompton may be familiar to intellectual-property lawyers from his years of service as the lead writer for the International Trademark Association’s annual meeting newsletter—among other publications. I recently sat down with him at a café in London, and we talked about lawyers, protection of his own intellectual property and the finer things in menswear.
“I like the fact that lawyers seem to man the last bastion of dressing a little bit formally—because that’s generally what you want from your lawyer,” said Mr. Crompton, echoing the advice of the American tailor and author Alan Flusser. And he agreed on the reason: it is all about building a sense of trust. He hastened to add, however, that it is not about conformity: “All over the UK, and I’m sure it happens in the US as well, you see young lawyers outside of a pub on a Friday night, and eighty percent of them will be wearing a navy suit, white shirt and black lace-up shoes. It looks completely predictable. There is no expression of individuality.”
Bespoke, he explained, is about looking smart but in your own way: all fine tailors have a “house style,” but within what is typically quite a broad range, the customer in effect participates in designing what he will wear. Indeed, I had just come to Mr. Crompton from visiting my own London tailor, Henry Poole & Co., where I was able to plan a future suit as purposefully as a chef planning a meal: a gray pin-dot cloth in wool and cashmere. A peak or a notch collar? This time, the notch. Lining: abjure the bold prints for something more reserved, a contrasting gray pattern, but still quite unique. And a collared vest (called here a waistcoat)—because, as a transplanted New Orleanian, I still am not quite used to New York winters and because, to be frank, it adds a touch of style. That is what bespoke is all about.
Our next topic was dear to my editorial heart: I have delved several times on these pages into the mysteries of the necktie—that one item of a man’s workday dress that has absolutely no discernible function except to make him look better. It also relates to a very important fact about the male physique: a well-cut suit jacket forces the eye upward, to the neck and then the face. Having it pass along a v-shaped crop of chest hair does not support an impression of a man of consequence. “A suit without a tie can work sometimes,” Mr. Crompton offered, “if it is a very casual suit, but most times, it just looks as if something is missing.”
Indeed, although Mr. Crompton was wearing a dark green Neapolitan suit (by the tailor Ettore de Cesare) made of corduroy—that ribbed cotton cloth that is the winter-weight mirror to the informality of linen for summer—he was quite correct that it would have worked far less successfully without his blue woolen knit tie by Trunk Clothiers of London.
But what about those—relatively speaking—more casual days even lawyers are sometimes afforded? “I think it is important for a lawyer to try to master the art of wearing sports jacket and trousers,” said Mr. Crompton. His use of the word master was not an accident. Most professional men wear that outfit often; doing it in a stylish way, however, is a challenge to many. “Start off with Navy jacket and gray trousers and start experimenting slightly—with brown trousers and a different kind of jacket with subtle patterns.” In other words, make it stylish, but make it your own—even if every bit of it was purchased off-the-rack. Remember that bespoke customers also buy most of what they wear, from jeans to raincoats, ready-made.
And that is what bespoke is really about: doing it smart, doing it stylishly and most important, doing in a way not necessarily done by others.
In my next post, I will explore how Mr. Crompton looks to protect his own intellectual property.
THE FASHION INDUSTRY LAW BLOG IS CELEBRATING TWO YEARS!
On May 19, 2014, our Fashion Practice launched The Fashion Industry Law Blog. Two years and 72 posts later, we are widely read and re-posted. We hope you have signed up to receive our posts in your inbox automatically as they are published* or have visited our site from time-to-time.
During the last two years, we have published posts related to copyrights and trademarks, licensing, real estate, labor and employment and notable cases of interest to the fashion and luxury goods communities. We have also published posts classified as “general musings” — light commentary about the goings-on in fashion that may be hip, trendy or controversial.
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During the course of negotiating a license agreement, a licensee may propose certain changes that may appear logical and reasonable. However, a licensor should be on the lookout for seemingly innocuous proposals that could impede its ability to operate its business.
“I need a longer sell-off period after termination and the types of customers to which I can sell during the sell-off period [e.g., only closeout accounts] is too limiting.” Agreeing to these requests may not be problematic if no new licensee is in place, but the license agreement must contemplate the possibility that there may be a new licensee; and extended and extensive sell-off rights may make it more difficult to conclude a new license and may increase the pressure to give financial and other concessions to the new licensee. (In a later post, we will discuss the substance of sell-off provisions, including circumstances of termination that could result in a bar to a sell-off beyond the date of a termination of the license agreement.)
How much time does a licensee actually need, particularly considering that, for a seasonal business with a typical December 31 contract year/term end, sell-off actually could be starting as early as September?
While selling off prior seasons’ inventory should not seriously compete with a new licensee’s business and while closeout accounts may be the only meaningful customers for closeouts, it cannot be good for the licensor’s brand or the new licensee’s business if the former licensee’s products, whether or not they include “basics,” are being offered to the new licensee’s regular customers at the same time that the new licensee’s business is being launched.
“I would like an option to renew the license agreement.” While renewal options are quite common, and sometimes may even be offered by a licensor, accepting some common licensee complaints can have unintended consequences.
“The date by which I have to exercise the option is too early.” Depending on the length of the term, this could be a fair point, but a licensor must keep in mind that, if the option is not exercised, it will need time to locate, negotiate with and conclude an agreement with a new licensee and the new licensee will need time to develop its initial collection, which, for a seasonal business, will have to go to market well before the end of the current licensee’s agreement. (In a later post, we will discuss the need for provisions in an exclusive license allowing the licensor to engage a new licensee during the term and the new licensee to start business before the end of the term.)
“The conditions for renewal are not objective.” As noted in an earlier post, a licensee will want only objective standards when it comes to the conditions it will have to satisfy in order to exercise its option. However, is it unreasonable for a licensor to be able stop doing business with a licensee that, while not technically having defaulted in its obligations, has been a terrible partner and exceedingly difficult to deal with?
“I would like a right of first refusal for additional products or countries or trademarks.” A right of first refusal, in effect, requires the licensor to make a deal with a prospective third party licensee and then offer the current licensee the right to match it. There is not much chance that a prospective licensee will be willing to devote the time and expense of negotiating a license agreement in these circumstances. If pressed, giving the existing licensee a first right to try to make a deal with the licensor – a right of first negotiation – is a better, and reasonable, alternative.
“I want more countries in my licensed territory.” If a prospective licensee can demonstrate the wherewithal to properly exploit the proposed additional countries, the inclusion of the additional countries is often just a question of business judgment. (There may, however, be legal considerations to be addressed in the license agreement depending on the status of the licensor’s trademark rights in the additional countries.) If additional countries are included, though, a licensor should retain the right to take back countries that the licensee does not exploit adequately; and any such reversion right must be carefully drafted, particularly to take into account that getting back a few countries in a region may not be of any real value to the licensor. (What potential new licensee is going to be interested in a license for a few scattered Asian or European countries if the existing licensee retains the major markets in the region?) A possible compromise here might allow the licensee to keep the entire region if it is appropriately exploiting the major markets in the region, but to lose the entire region if it is not.
