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Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

guitarworld.com

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Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#11

Post by piltdownman »

gchamonlive wrote: post #7
the__alchemist wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The problem is some PE has read up on the FujiGen Gakki guitars of the 70s and thought they could strike rich with a test case in a soft German court - and they were right.

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#15

Post by whynotmaybe »

zkanda wrote: post #12

Fender doesn’t even make the best strat and so overpriced, but I guess it’s subjective.

Yes, it's easier to settle a debate on the best Linux distro than on the best Strat.

For Mayonnaise, Billy Corgan used a 60$ guitar that produced unwanted feedback but kept the sounds into the final result which makes it so unique, it was the best in that situation.

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#16

Post by Hamuko »

criddell wrote: post #6
rectang wrote: post #2

If 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.

Leo also copied his own designs later on after he sold Fender and started other guitar companies. For example the G&L ASAT looks pretty much exactly like a Fender Telecaster.

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#17

Post by metalman »

Fender is dead.

this is a cringe attempt by people holding "legal rights" to something so far gone in history and precident to be just an embarassment and likely criminal persecution of ordinary crafts people building guitars.

If ,whatever hidden legal entity that controls the trade marks, was smart, they would be begging the best indipendent makers to colaberate in making true masterpiece guitars under just that idea, "custom made FOR fender" by person X, paying them a premium, and then re selling to the world market for whatever they can get.

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#20

Post by Aboutplants »

I’m always fascinated when companies in industries with extremely passionate customer bases make moves like this when if you just thought it through the probable timeline you would expect them to tread much more lightly. But that’s what you get with management that is out of touch with their customers and industry and only focused on short term numbers. Rather telling of the leadership of Fender than anything else
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