Belgian football club Beerschot is in the spotlight and not the way they want. The memorable unveiling of a limited edition shirt is overshadowed by the accusations of plagiarism. British designer Diana Al Shammari believes that her work has been copied and hints on legal steps. FashionUnited asked a lawyer to watch, because how much chance of success has a lawsuit in this case?
Al Shammari is known on Instagram as ‘Thefootballgal’. On her account she enriches football shirts with embroidery. In the past she has worked with the Red Devils, Bayern Munich, Manchester City and Adidas. The new Limited Edition football shirt from Antwerp football club Beerschot has now incorporated several purple violins in a similar place where the embroidery of Al Shammari are often applied. The football club has clarified in a statement that the purple violins are a well -known symbol for Beerschot and the flower pattern is inspired by Antwerp fashion.
The gaze of a lawyer: Can British designer be right in plagiarism case?
Margot Span from Spargo Legal takes a look from Dutch law. “Al Shammari, in her comment on the Instagram post of the football club in which the new design is presented about the simulation of ‘This Floral Embroidery Concept in Football’. A style or a concept in which football shirts are embroidered with flower and plant motifs is not eligible for protection via copyright. Al Shammari cannot monopolize the concept or style of a football shirt embroidered with flower motifs and this must be possible to use it freely by the Antwerp football club. ”
“Only when an idea or style has been worked out in a concrete design of a football shirt, then that specificly embroidered football shirt may be possible as copyright work. For copyright protection it is required that the embroidered football shirt is its own intellectual creation of Al Shammari is the personality of the last alley of the last alley of the last all. If we assume that the football shirt is a copyrighted work then the question is whether the copyrighted traits of the specific design of Al Shammari have been recognized in the football shirt of the Antwerp football club.
The fact that the CEO of NOVA, the company behind the production of the football shirt, initially admitted that it was inspired by Al Shammari, does not weigh too heavy according to Span. “The fact that the Antwerp football club says it is inspired by the embroidered football shirts of Al Shammari does not mean that there is imitation and therefore infringement. The boundary between inspiration and imitation is a thin line: if in the embroidered football shirt of the Antwerp football club, the authorized traits of a bait can be protected from a bordering trap Shammari certainly acts against the infringement of her copyright. The shirts are made in a limited edition of 200, so the chance that there is an own view of the market of football shirts seems small.
Whether Al Shammari will actually take legal action, remains unclear for the time being. It is clear, however, that the issue raises questions about how far inspiration may go and when something is legally considered as imitation. For Beerschot it means that a festive launch is now unexpectedly accompanied by a legal edge.
