Knockoff Economy

How Imitation Sparks Innovation
Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-0-19-539978-3
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 642 g

Highly engrossing and readable tour of the an important underside of the American economy Features wonderful stories about on fashion companies that specialize in knockoffs, coaches who copy plays from other teams, and comedians who lift jokes and routines from their rivals Will upend our understanding of copyright and indeed the necessity of originality itself Authors have already received acclaim for their work on the topic in major media outlets

From the shopping mall to the corner bistro, knockoffs are everywhere in today's marketplace. Conventional wisdom holds that copying kills creativity, and that laws that protect against copies are essential to innovation--and economic success. But are copyrights and patents always necessary? In The Knockoff Economy, Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman provocatively argue that creativity can not only survive in the face of copying, but can thrive.

The Knockoff Economy approaches the question of incentives and innovation in a wholly new way--by exploring creative fields where copying is generally legal, such as fashion, food, and even professional football. By uncovering these important but rarely studied industries, Raustiala and Sprigman reveal a nuanced and fascinating relationship between imitation and innovation. In some creative fields, copying is kept in check through informal industry norms enforced by private sanctions. In others, the freedom to copy actually promotes creativity. High fashion gave rise to the very term "knockoff," yet the freedom to imitate great designs only makes the fashion cycle run faster--and forces the fashion industry to be even more creative.

Raustiala and Sprigman carry their analysis from food to font design to football plays to finance, examining how and why each of these vibrant industries remains innovative even when imitation is common. There is an important thread that ties all these instances together--successful creative industries can evolve to the point where they become inoculated against--and even profit from--a world of free and easy copying. And there are important lessons here for copyright-focused industries, like music and film, that have struggled as digital technologies have made copying increasingly widespread and difficult to stop.

Raustiala and Sprigman's arguments have been making headlines in The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Boston Globe, Le Monde, and at the Freakonomics blog, where they are regular contributors. By looking where few had looked before--at markets that fall outside normal IP law--The Knockoff Economy opens up fascinating creative worlds. And it demonstrates that not only is a great deal of innovation possible without intellectual property, but that intellectual property's absence is sometimes better for innovation.

Zielgruppe

General readers; students and scholars of intellectual property law

Autoren/Hrsg.

Raustiala, Kal

Sprigman, Christopher

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Wirtschaftsrecht Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz allg., Marken- und Kennzeichenrecht
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen: Allgemeines
• Rechtswissenschaften Wirtschaftsrecht Urheberrecht
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management Forschung & Entwicklung (F&E), Innovation

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Knockoffs & Fashion Victims
Chapter 3: Cuisine, Copying, & Creativity
Chapter 4: Comedy & Copyright
Chapter 5: Football, Fonts, Finance, & Feist
Chapter 6: Conclusion
Chapter 7: Epilogue: The Future is Now-Music as a Low-IP Industry

Über Autor(innen)

Raustiala, Kal
Kal Raustiala, Professor of Law and Director of the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations, UCLA, United States.

Sprigman, Christopher
Christopher Sprigman, Associate Professor of Law, The University of Virginia School of Law.

Kal Raustiala, Professor of Law and Director of the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations, UCLA, United States, and Christopher Sprigman, Associate Professor of Law, The University of Virginia School of Law.