And going even farther back, the British industrial revolution was built on producing cheap copies of Indian textiles.

And the label "Made in Germany" was once created by the British to protect their own manufacturing from cheap clones from Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_Germany

... using machines that british people invented.

get the overall point, but not sure this is a good example.

US copied british factories by industrial espionage to bootstrap their own industry and eventually became the bigger industrial producer...

"On December 20, 1790, water-powered machinery for spinning and carding cotton was set in motion in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Based on the designs of English inventor Richard Arkwright, a mill was built by Samuel Slater on the Blackstone River. The Slater mill was the first American factory to successfully produce cotton yarn with water-powered machines. Slater was a recent English immigrant who apprenticed Arkwright's partner, Jebediah Strutt.

Samuel Slater had evaded British law against emigration of textile workers in order to seek his fortune in America. Considered the father of the United States textile industry, he eventually built several successful cotton mills in New England and established the town of Slatersville, Rhode Island."

https://www.thoughtco.com/richard-arkwright-water-frame-1991...

I think that is specifically the point. The copycats automate and improve, then dominate.

Well, they were cheaper because the industrial revolution was basically the British inventing the textile industry.

In the 1980s, electronics that said "Made in Japan" were well-regarded (still are today), but in the 1950s it was the opposite: they were seen as cheap. This was actually a joke in the movie Back to the Future.

See also Japanese cars from the 1970s versus the 1990s to today.

Same thing with electric guitars.

In the 60 and early 70ies, Made in Japan guitars, specially copies of Gibson and Fender guitars where not well regarded.

But they started to greatly improve, and by the late 70ies and 80ies they were equal if not better than their originals (specially Fender which was not well managed by CBS at the time).

In the copy department you still have brands like Burny/Fernandez or Tokai, and also brands that outgrew the simple copy business with genuine models such as Ibanez, Yamaha or Takamine (a few lawsuits may have helped them develop in that direction).