DPPA: East Coast vs. West Coast Showdown?
Today, we have a guest post from Biana Borukhovich, Law Student at Touro
Biana has pointed out that in general, East Coasters favor the Design Piracy Prohibition Act ("DDPA"), while West Coasters are opposed (see Monday's Fashion Law Blog Post on DPPA here).
While the DPPA proposes to govern copyright law related to fashion, Biana thinks that violations of Trademark law, specifically counterfeits, give rise to the differences in attitude:
In the U.S., views about whether the Design Piracy Prohibition Act should be passed differ greatly from coast to coast. On the West coast, attorneys in the fashion industry believe that the bill will run many companies out of business, which in result, will devastate our declining economy even more. Conversely, attorneys on the East coast think the passage of this bill is necessary to protect designers and to avoid loss of tax dollars.
Although both sides have legitimate arguments, what is the real reason behind these differing opinions?
Perhaps it’s the annual amount of counterfeiting that each coast incurs. For example, in December 2009, New York City officials confiscated over $1 million in “knockoff” designer handbags, watches, and wallets in Chinatown.
In addition, roughly ten buildings along New York City's Canal Street housing over thirty counterfeit operators were shutdown for illegal sale of counterfeit items. On the other hand, this year, only four storefronts near Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco were closed down due to counterfeiting.
Statistics show that there is a huge difference in the amount of counterfeiting that occurs from coast to coast. Therefore, I believe that it is a fair assumption that one community is more concerned over counterfeiting than the other, thereby giving rise to the major differences in opinion regarding the passage of the Design Piracy Prohibition Act.
Readers, what do you think? I look forward to your comments.
I also think it has much to do with community infrastructure and the position of given leaders within each respectively -and their ability to propagate their message. The industry is traditionally fragmented but less so on the east coast than west. You have more power brokers in NY and they're aided by geographic proximity to Washington. In the west, we can't write Schumer to tell him he's all wet; you need a NY zip code which is hardly fair considering his proposals affect us all. The structure of the system effectively prevents an open airing of the issues which only exacerbates alienation and resentment.
There's also less tangible affects such as attitudinal. In stark contrast to their most tightly held self perceptions, people in NY tend to be shockingly provincial. Prairie Home Companion once did a hilarious skit of a geography quiz given to New Yorkers, mocking their insularity- and it's readily interpreted by others as elitism. There's one NY fashion blog that spares no reticence in stating NY is superior to the west coast -the latter being pretentious play actors of the craft- so it's only natural to see an opposite reaction on that coast.
The problem as I see it is there's an echo chamber to the east. Whether borne of elitism, proximity to power, insularity or what have you, the east coast is in for a rude awakening. Stripped to its essence, I don't think this is about copyright at all but a fundamental discord manifest of fragmentation. It's a last gasp of the east coast attempting to assert their predominance of the industry. Sooner or later, they'll have to come to terms with it.