Will Fender Destroy the Guitar Market?

[Dieter]

I just watched a sensational video reporting on measures taken by the Fender Corporation to impose sanctions—severe enough to threaten the very existence of companies—on replicas of the Strat model, at least across Europe.
The starting point was a German court ruling in the case of Fender vs. a Chinese company.
Fender is apparently already sending out letters across the board to music companies, music retailers, and guitar makers demanding that they stop all shipments of unauthorized Strats, destroy all Strats in stock, pay damages and legal fees, and even disclose the personal data of buyers.
The well-known German music retailer Thomann is said to have already been contacted; according to estimates, Thomann would have to destroy approximately 10,000 guitars.
In Germany, general boycott measures against Fender are reportedly already being discussed.
Has anyone else heard about this matter? Here is the video on the topic; unfortunately, it’s only in German, but English subtitles are available.

Dieter

[Michael Krailo]

I’m glad I bought real Fender guitar’s, except for the pain I had to go through removing the darn urethane coating from all of the frets. They did that to reduce costs. These companies should sue Fender for not doing anything about it sooner if they really cared about it. It caused a belief that they were not doing anything objectionable. How long has this been going on now?

I could not figure out how to get English subtitles. Anyone know the secret?

Go slow and practice correct technique, and your abilities will dramatically improve.

[sunjamr]

A similar article appeared on my Youtube home page, but it was 100% in English. Just do a search on Youtube for “Fender lawsuit” and you will find dozens of recent videos on this subject. To be honest, I’ve wondered for a long time how Fender has allowed other companies to produce virtually exact clones of the Strat and Tele guitars. I’ve always read that to avoid a lawsuit from the patent or copyright holder, you have to make your product 10% different. But what does that mean? So far it’s been entirely a subjective decision by a judge or occasionally a jury.

Also, both patents and copyrights expire after some period of time. Google says this: “AI Overview: There are no active design or utility patents on the original Fender Stratocaster; those patents expired decades ago. Today, the design is legally protected by trademarks and copyrights.”

And also: “Fender’s distinctive headstock design is a protected trademark. Other manufacturers can copy the body of the guitar, but they legally cannot replicate the exact Fender headstock shape.”

And also: “A German court ruled that the Stratocaster body shape is considered a protected “work of applied art” under European copyright law, rather than just a purely functional shape. This allows Fender to legally block the manufacturing and distribution of blatant unauthorized copies within the European Union.” So China can keep making copies and selling them everywhere except within the EU.

And what about this? I could argue that the shape of the Strat body was originally 100% based on functionality. It only became “art” because we’ve all been looking at it so long that we decided its Zen-like simplicity is lovely to look at.

Sunjamr Steve

[Dieter]

Hi Michael, the rectangular subtitle menu is in the bottom right corner, and next to it is the hexagonal icon for the settings you want. It usually works for me, but not always.

Dieter

[Michael Krailo]

Dieter wrote:

Hi Michael, the rectangular subtitle menu is in the bottom right corner, and next to it is the hexagonal icon for the settings you want. It usually works for me, but not always.

Dieter

The CC (closed captions button) is simply a toggle to turn them on/off. It’s still in German for me, no way to change or translate the language.

In any case, there are many people talking about this hostile take over in the guitar market by Fender and I think it’s going to end up being all the companies getting together for a large class action counter suit against Fender. I’m well aware of what they are doing and would love to hear their excuse on why they let never did anything about it in the distant past. The guitar is a tool to play music. some of us are focused heavily on sound and comfort and feel, no company should have a monopoly on ergonomic body shape that is comfortable and fits all human bodies perfectly. The sound of a guitar is made up of many factors, but body shape is not one of them at least for electric guitars. It just so happens that it is visually appealing as well. For acoustics, different shapes and sizes of bodies changes the sound necessarily and no company should have a monopoly on one particular size of guitar body either.

Copying every aspect of a guitar is another story, and that’s where they could have reason to object to duplication. Is PRS guitar an exact copy? I don’t think so. They sound different, the neck is obviously different and it doesn’t have a Fender logo on it. The neck join is totally different, different headstock, standard stainless steel frets, narrow field pick ups. If you wanted to change pickups, it is not as easy on PRS due to lack of space that is routed out in the body. It’s insane to me that Fender can do this to other manufactures based on one claimed variable of proprietary body shape. That’s just BS.

Go slow and practice correct technique, and your abilities will dramatically improve.

[charjo]

Tim Pierce stated that the Stratocaster body shape has been public domain in the U.S.A. from 2009 (I assume that would apply to the telecaster as well). I think this is more a European issue at the moment. I’m not sure about the status in Canada.
John

[sunjamr]

Speaking of the subtitle language, here’s an interesting fact: I follow a German science blogger on Youtube called Sabine Hossenfelder. When I watch her videos on my Samsung TV, the subtitles are in German. But when I watch them on my MacBook or iPad, the subtitles are in English. I am signed up for Youtube Premium (no ads) which is supposed to do a better job of tracking your preferences. But it appears that the subtitle language depends on the app you are using.

Sunjamr Steve

[6stringer Pete]

Fender is privately owned today, and the majority owner is Servco Pacific Inc. of Hawaii. Servco bought out TPG Growth’s stake in 2020, which made Servco Fender’s majority owner.

Fender is still run as Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, with its familiar brands like Fender, Squier, Gretsch, Jackson, Charvel, and EVH under that corporate umbrella.

I believe Servco is just putting out a scare tactic. My belief is that the new management realize there is more profit to be made overseas production. That is why they got G&L also and closed shop. Seriously, the new Squier line ( originally made in Indonesia is now made in China). It might be a hit and miss, but a few months ago I was force to buy the Chinese made one. To tell you the truth, it rocks. 100% connected with it, but I can say this, they are no longer and inexpensive guitar. Servco and their attorneys are playing the future came. I haven’t checked who the the CEO is yet… someone want to follow up on that.

The melody of the notes is what expresses the art of music . 🙂 6stringerPete

It really is all about ”melody”. The melody comes from a language from our heart. Our heart is the muscle in music harmony. The melody is the sweetness that it pumps into our musical thoughts on the fretboard. 🙂 6 stringer Pete

Pete
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