The knockoff economy: how imitation sparks innovation

In many sectors, copying is more or less accepted as a business strategy.

Knockoff products that look, taste, and sound suspiciously like 'originals' abound in upscale chain restaurants, fashion outlets, and contemporary architecture. And such industries typically regard the pervasive piracy as a spur toward further innovation-even though individual designers and creators may condemn it.

However, as As Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman demonstrate in this consistently entertaining work, such fields have not suffered any loss of vibrancy.

Driven by a counterintuitive thesis that has been highlighted in both The New Yorker and The New York Times, The Knockoff Economy is an engrossing and highly entertaining tour through the economic sectors where piracy both rules and invigorates.