Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars
guitarworld.com
Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars
1–10 of 137 posts
Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars
#2If a guitar company were attempting to enforce IP rights on a new design instead of one from 75 years ago with a decades-old cottage industry of copycats large and small, this would be a different story.
Small builders like LsL have the community’s sympathy. They don’t have the resources to fight a legal battle against the world’s largest guitar company.
Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars
#3If a guitar company were attempting to enforce IP rights on a new design instead of one from 75 years ago with a decades-old cottage industry of copycats large and small, this would be a different story. Small builders like LsL have the community’s sympathy. They don’t have the resources to fight a legal battle against the world’s largest guitar company.
I think this captures the most important points.
I was just thinking about this: Would it kill guitar makers to stop copying the Strat and [P|J] bass? It is wild that the earliest guitar designs are still ubiquitous / the most popular types. For anyone not familiar: The matter is not about iterating on these original designs; there's lots of that too, including by the same companies! It's about instruments that are effectively clones, and look (at a glance) identical other than the name on the headstock. Sometimes they are fancy ones built to a higher quality than the original, but superficially look like clones.
It is also interesting that MusicMan (Another Fender company!) has gone differently; still some of the most recognizable designs, but they have been selling officially licensed versions instead to capture the lower end. (SUB, OLP, Sterling etc), and don't have the copycats of the Fender models.
Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars
#4on the one hand this sucks on the other hand let a thousand schools of steinberger/strandberg-style weirdness bloom
Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars
#5> According to Fender, the outcome of the case – launched against a Chinese manufacturer – gave the firm the legal right to “protect its designs in global commerce”.
So they used China scare as a trojan horse to sue other US manufacturers? There's some delicious irony in that.
Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars
#6If a guitar company were attempting to enforce IP rights on a new design instead of one from 75 years ago with a decades-old cottage industry of copycats large and small, this would be a different story. Small builders like LsL have the community’s sympathy. They don’t have the resources to fight a legal battle against the world’s largest guitar company.
Leo Fender could have protected the body design just like he did with the headstock, but he didn't. Pursuing this now, especially against a small maker, feels hostile and could backfire on them. I hope it does.
Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars
#7If a guitar company were attempting to enforce IP rights on a new design instead of one from 75 years ago with a decades-old cottage industry of copycats large and small, this would be a different story. Small builders like LsL have the community’s sympathy. They don’t have the resources to fight a legal battle against the world’s largest guitar company.
I think this captures the most important points. I was just thinking about this: Would it kill guitar makers to stop copying the Strat and [P|J] bass? It is wild that the earliest guitar designs are still ubiquitous / the most popular types. For anyone not familiar: The matter is not about iterating on these original designs; there's lots of that too, including by the same companies! It's about instruments that are e…
Maybe someone new to music and guitar would mistake them for the real thing, but these copies have different hand styles and they have neither the Stratocaster nor the fender logo. This is a non-issue.
The actual problem lies within fender itself. Not only it's aggressively protecting a old design, fender itself is guilty of being misleading when it splits its product line into multiple brands that's often confusing for the consumer: fender squire, squire by fender, the regular one, fender custom shop, American vintage etc... which is only discernible by the price.
Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars
#8> According to Fender, the outcome of the case – launched against a Chinese manufacturer – gave the firm the legal right to “protect its designs in global commerce”. So they used China scare as a trojan horse to sue other US manufacturers? There's some delicious irony in that.
Plus the Chinese firm didn't even show up to defend themselves, so it was a default judgement.
Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars
#9If a guitar company were attempting to enforce IP rights on a new design instead of one from 75 years ago with a decades-old cottage industry of copycats large and small, this would be a different story. Small builders like LsL have the community’s sympathy. They don’t have the resources to fight a legal battle against the world’s largest guitar company.
I think this captures the most important points. I was just thinking about this: Would it kill guitar makers to stop copying the Strat and [P|J] bass? It is wild that the earliest guitar designs are still ubiquitous / the most popular types. For anyone not familiar: The matter is not about iterating on these original designs; there's lots of that too, including by the same companies! It's about instruments that are e…
Because two things look the same, even identical, does not mean one copied the other. These are useful, practical, objects. A honda and a toyota me be virtually identical (same size, weight, door, number of wheels etc) but nobody would call them copies. And if they did, they are both copies of an ancient, out-of-copyright, merc rather than each other.
Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars
#10If a guitar company were attempting to enforce IP rights on a new design instead of one from 75 years ago with a decades-old cottage industry of copycats large and small, this would be a different story. Small builders like LsL have the community’s sympathy. They don’t have the resources to fight a legal battle against the world’s largest guitar company.
I think this captures the most important points. I was just thinking about this: Would it kill guitar makers to stop copying the Strat and [P|J] bass? It is wild that the earliest guitar designs are still ubiquitous / the most popular types. For anyone not familiar: The matter is not about iterating on these original designs; there's lots of that too, including by the same companies! It's about instruments that are e…
In terms of ergonomics, resonance and so on, there's not many terribly optimal solidbody electronic guitar shapes that deviate from the Les Paul/Strat/Tele trinity. Explorers, Flying Vs and the like are basically genre-oddities for aesthetics.
Guitars are not about aesthetics, otherwise Fender wouldn't have marques like Squier or ranges like Highway One to differentiate their low-quality tiers.