This paper argues that due to the endless substitution possibilities open to consumers of cultural products, firms’ competitive advantage rests as much upon positionality and differentiation as upon traditional forms of intellectual property such as copyrights and trademarks.

However, the construction of positionality and differentiation may entail geographies and milieus other than those best suited to the origination and creation of cultural industry artefacts. The paper suggests that existing models of regional growth and innovation systems must be adapted to fit firms and sectors where competitiveness is not only based on traditional types of intellectual property (such as copyrights or patents) but also differential property (such as marketplace positionality). If providing a regional system supportive of differentiation (and market positionality) is important to these firms/industries then we must reappraise our notions of supportive regional conditions. To this end a revised version of the cluster model of regional competitive advantage is presented: one which attempts to be more tailored to industries where intellectual property and differentiation are the core products.