Fashion is danger

| Gabriel |

Dear Senator Feinstein,

I am writing to you both as a constituent and as an expert on creative industries. I want to thank you for your opposition to the IDPPPA (S. 3728) bill that would extend formal (and actionable) intellectual property rights to the fashion industry.

As you know, the Constitution authorizes Congress “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” That is to say, intellectual property rights are meant to correct a market failure of insufficient creativity. The idea that an industry that releases hundreds of creative designs every spring and fall has a shortage of creativity is frankly absurd.

Not only is it implausible to imagine that we would see more fashion in a world with the IDPPPA but to the contrary we should see less. Fashion is currently the only creative realm where one can create freely without worrying about concepts like infringement, clearance, or licensing. IDPPPA would end this and create a world where (much like biochemists or musicians) fashion designers would spend less of their time at the drafting table and more of their time with lawyers. This would both imply a deadweight loss and increase barriers to entry. One need only look at the decline in creativity in hip hop music following Grand Upright and Bridgeport to see how the extension of IP rights to fashion would create gridlock effects that would completely swamp whatever marginal incentive effects IP would provide.

Please have your staff contact me if I can be of any assistance on this issue.

Gabriel Rossman
Assistant Professor
Sociology, UCLA