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What if knockoffs are sometimes [Good Actually](#good actually)?
I'm probably going to want to write this into a post, but I need a scratchpad for it for now.
https://www.ravelry.com/projects/Turin56/portland-timbers-beanie https://www.ravelry.com/projects/lynellenyl/bury-me-in-timbers-green-scarf https://www.ravelry.com/projects/silverpurl/show-me-your-timbers-pride https://www.ravelry.com/projects/mjsfnash/beanie
Most of this kind of project could be classed as a "knockoff" of "official" products.
There's some category of what people mean by "knockoff" that's ... you know, make the same thing but in a country where you can get away with treating the workers worse, maybe cheaper materials. But that isn't always it, of course -- you could argue Balenciaga knocked off IKEA. The homemade Timbers merch can be nicer.
People who make things are very sensitive to both the value of ideas and the value of execution, and get in huge internet fights about them. "How dare you draw dragons with succulents when I know you know that's my whole deal" was one I witnessed on Instagram. In a world where days of hard work can be screenshotted and sold on Society6 in a matter of minutes, some end up pretty absolutist about intellectual property in objection to that. Some end up pretty absolutist about intellectual property in the other direction -- it's a jpeg, mannnn, it's free on the internet now.
Maybe it's more useful to think about it only in terms of physical items? People have a hard time with the intuitions for digital stuff anyway.
A knockoff can be better or worse than the original in terms of objective quality or specific suitability. A knockoff can be more or less a product of your specific social context than the original.
Fanfiction is rarely a knockoff. Fanfilms seem to attempt to be more. Cover bands are often knockoffs.