Urban Outfitters not so trendy Copyright Infringement

I currently work for Urban Outfitters as a sales person and have for the last two summers. Over this time, I have learned of many infringement violations that UO has encountered over time. The one case I found interesting was one that happened during my time working for URBAN.

"On April 4, 2017, The Ninth Circuit ruled that Urban Outfitters were liable for willful infringement of a copyrighted fabric design owned by Unicolors Inc" (Morrow and Holland). Unicolor's is a company that creates designs and sell fabric to customers in the apparel market and retail based out of Los Angeles. Unicolors Inc. consistently registers their designs on the products as their copyright. "Flowers 2008" was what the design was copyright registered under for Unicolors Inc. Urban Outfitter's design team creates a good amount of garments each year inspired by different pieces of fabric from art studios or thrift stores. In this, they received the design from the same place Unicolors Inc. had bought the design from Milk Print, LLC.

Overall, the two day trial found in favor of Unicolor and Urban Outfitters had to pay them for designs and damages. The shirts shown below were the ones I had to cut up last summer in our local Denver store because it's print/design had copyright infringement. I know now that you must obtain a written authorization from the owner of the copyright that you can use their design/art. It really shows how important it is to get a written agreement and demonstrates how we all need to be cautious about using other individual's works.

I want to do my paper on this type of topic because counterfeit is found in so many various venues in today's societies. If you walk up and down the streets of New York City, you can see the venders selling fake "Gucci" or "Coach" on the side of the street with the brand written on it. This is false advertisement and is completely illegal. However, why do they not often get caught?

This was inspired from the article: https://www.knobbe.com/news/2017/05/urban-outfitters-hit-willful-copyright-infringement