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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

#121

Post by jen20 »

wyclif wrote: post #114
spamizbad wrote: post #59

If you're not guitar gear nerd, you might be unaware: Fender doesn't make the best version of its various guitar shapes (with one debatable exception)[1]. If you want an off-the-rack "S-Style" guitar (Stratocaster) there's a handful of premium, smaller brands that will make an objectively better guitar than any of Fender's offerings, including their premium "Ultra" series: Suhr, Anderson Guitarworks, James Tyler Guit…

Fender has cannibalized their brand, just like Ray-Ban and many other manufacturers known for a "classic" design. But what's changed recently is that now they're not just feeling the competition from premium-priced guitars; they're getting squeezed from the low end, sub-$1K part of the market coming from China and Indonesia. Recently I played a Chinese made Telecaster copy that was better in terms of quality and play…

> they're getting squeezed from the low end, sub-$1K part of the market coming from China and Indonesia.

This was true in the 80s with Japanese competition as well (the last time Fender tried putting the body shapes back in the box) - Tokei and friends were making vastly better guitars than even the American Fender production at that point.

The way Fender survived was by buying the top producers and forming Squier guitars as their entry level.

> It's a shame to see a once-great American brand get cooked by resorting to lawfare instead of QC.

They did this in the past too, largely over the headstock shape. My "main" Stratocaster-type guitars (despite owning several genuine Fenders of different vintages) are a pair of Levinson Blade R4s - one has the Fender-shape headstock and the other has a modified version from after Levinson got sued in the 90s.

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#122

Post by jen20 »

shermantanktop wrote: post #103
manwe150 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a story, possibly apocryphal, that the first electric guitar demo was a bunch of strings nailed to some basic lumber and it received a negative reception. The designer went home, tore apart his acoustic guitar and mounted the electronics inside. The sound was not changed by this. The critical reception however was much improved. And the rest is history. The shape might not be purely functional—and that seems…

It’s a true story, and it’s about Les Paul and “the log.” https://guitar.com/features/opinion-analysis/how-les-pauls-l...

The "log" (generally dated to 1941) is the railroad sleeper ("tie" for Americans?) with wings made in the Epiphone factory in Manhattan attached to the side, and is in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. This is the guitar that Gibson turned down until Fender and Bigsby (via Merle Travis) popularized the solid body guitar.

The predecessor was a single string on a piece of actual rail and two spikes, amplified by a telephone receiver in the mid-late 1920s.

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#123

Post by jen20 »

thomasfortes wrote: post #96
coldpie wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're pretty much correct, yeah. If you want to know what the actual benefit to playing a more expensive and/or name-brand instrument is, it's because it's largely a signal to others about your self. Playing a recognizable brand or a obscure-but-expensive brand can show to others that you're serious & knowledgeable about the hobby, instead of just playing a $150 strat clone you bought off Amazon. If you want to make…

> Above like $500, they all play pretty much the same Yeah, really cheap guitars (like $150 cheap) can be great but they also can be terrible due to non existent QC and electronics and hardware being the cheapest available because every cent matters. But as soon as you hit a price point where QC exists a lot of reasonably priced instruments just need a proper setup and better electronics (not the pickups, but pots, w…

> can be great but they also can be terrible due to non existent QC and electronics and hardware being the cheapest available because every cent matters.

This also perfectly describes the CBS era of Fender (late 1960s to 1970s). There's survivor bias in the ones left, but the prices absolutely do not reflect the quality relative to later ones.

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#124

Post by jen20 »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #38
boxed wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trademarks are infinite though. Which makes sense, since otherwise anyone could produce "Coca Cola".

Trademarks are a fundamentally different kind of IP. With copyright and patent, the creator of the work is being protected. But with trademark law, it's not about protecting the content of the IP as such. It's about protecting the consumer from being misled into thinking they're getting the real thing. And given the guitar market at large, with about ten thousand different guitars in the general shape of a Strat, it'…

The reason the headstocks are different is because Fender _won_ cases about that in the past.

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#125

Post by nickserv »

piltdownman wrote: post #10
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…

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.

Ergonomics, yes, sure.

For the sound though, a block of any material strong enough to resist the string tension will be just fine.

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#126

Post by jen20 »

Hamuko wrote: post #68
snide wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Guitars are not about aesthetics My wife used to work at Acoustic Guitar magazine. She said the most common sales line to sell a guitar at Guitar Center was "it looks good on you". The sound of guitars might not be aesthetics, but in regards to sales, it most certainly is. Everyone plays the same guitars because they grew up seeing their idols play those guitars.

Yeah, I'd say guitars are heavily based on aesthetics, but not entirely. One of the reasons why I switched from a Les Paul, which was the guitar shape I loved the most before I started playing, to a Stratocaster was that the Stratocaster was just that much more comfortable. The LP body is basically just a block of wood with a cutout for your hand in comparison to the contoured body of the Stratocaster. If I had to bu…

Look into a "Recording" model Les Paul (or the newer "Iridium" model if you don't care about the low-impedance electronics) - they have exactly that. The main complaint is usually the weight though - of the two I have one is 11lbs and one is 15lbs (!!!).

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#127

Post by butlike »

wk_end wrote: post #111
spamizbad wrote: post #59

If you're not guitar gear nerd, you might be unaware: Fender doesn't make the best version of its various guitar shapes (with one debatable exception)[1]. If you want an off-the-rack "S-Style" guitar (Stratocaster) there's a handful of premium, smaller brands that will make an objectively better guitar than any of Fender's offerings, including their premium "Ultra" series: Suhr, Anderson Guitarworks, James Tyler Guit…

I disagree completely with the idea that people only still think of Fender-style guitars as good because of boutique builders. Not that I disagree with the premise that boutique builders are making better guitars for better prices. But rich engineers and lawyers play boutique guitars - almost everyone else, including most professional musicians, still play Fenders (or one of the other big mainstream brands). Fender a…

Is it an asshole move to protect a trademark? The bottom line is that the pop and pop and boutique shops are riding on the coattails of Fender's design. Why don't they come up with a new, iconic design instead?

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#128

Post by butlike »

nickserv wrote: post #125
piltdownman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ergonomics, yes, sure. For the sound though, a block of any material strong enough to resist the string tension will be just fine.

Well there's also truss rods for when the material isn't strong enough to resist the string tension!

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#129

Post by butlike »

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #45

My first and last Fender guitar was a Squier when I was a kid and just starting to learn. I’m sure the guitars are fine (the squier was for what it is), but I’ve always gotten the ick from their business practices. These days there really isn’t anything special about their guitars there are a bajillion copycats that are almost as good, some that are better. This kind of legal campaign just reeks of desperation from l…

Playing a strat makes you feel like a rockstar. Simple as that

Re: Fender escalates legal campaign against S-style guitars

#130

Post by butlike »

tiahura wrote: post #56
zkanda wrote: post #12

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

The body has literally 0 effect on the sound of an electric guitar. Only the pickups matter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE

Well, the pickups and the tensors for the strings
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