Posted by Audiophilip 2 days ago
Now other brands are eating their lunch, and Fender is seemingly trying a last hail marry to get this settled. My guess is that if they manage to get a positive ruling in Europe, they'll somehow try to use that as case for US courts.
Compare this, for example, to smartphone chargers or headphones and their compatibility.
Audio hasn't changed at all in the last two centuries. An analog audio signal is fundamental physics and there's nothing to gain or change or improve in any meaningful sense. TRS/phono jacks likewise are just so brute force stupid and rugged that there was never a reason to change.
The connectors and interfaces never changed because the underlying signals never changed because there's nothing to change. Digial electronics on the other hand legitimately have gone through real and worthwhile changes, and been radically redefined many times in the last 60 years.
Almost everything anyone has tried to do to modernize electric guitars in a non-compatible way has had big downsides.
Almost any guitar with a pre-amp or whatever built into it that would allow it to use a cable like an XLR cable ends up needing batteries in the guitar, which then introduce a maintenance/failure point. And very often efforts to introduce this stuff haven't sounded great.
The only place this has kind of changed is super high gain guitars for metal. They are more likely to use active pickups, they'll have a battery, but they still use standard cabling for compatibility.
Anything that is modernized ends up being more expensive and harder to work on yourself. A basic guitar like a Strat or Tele has incredibly simple electronics and is super easy for any guitar player to learn to fix themselves, and most of the parts inside are super cheap. And it all just works really well.
And the audience never cares, they care about the notes you choose to play and the message the musician cares to get across.
No need for "probably". That absolutely works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_F7aiOvdwE
(technically a "diddley bow": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diddley_bow)
Of course, none of this will ever happen.
Having a court stop actual counterfeits -- sure, nobody has a problem with that. That's not what this is.
Then there was the headstock thing, Fender was notorious for pursuing makers of guitars with headstocks that had any resemblance to the Strat headstock. Let's ignore how limited the design space is considering the constraints of six strings - six tuners at the end of a narrow strip of timber. Fender was obviously acting in an anti-competitive way at that point. At the same time, the quality of their own products continued to drop. Coincidence?
Now they are going after anything that looks like an electric guitar.
The general "S-style" body form, as popularised/iconified by the Stratocaster is popular for many reasons. A lot of those reasons (I would say most) are practical/functional.
Fender shouldn't be allowed to possess the shape, let alone use it as an anti-competitive weapon in order to coast along for another century just because the brand happens to come with some notable IP.
Fender's monopoly over the shape shouldn't be protected by law/courts. Here's why:
It's a functional design -- a matter of ergonomics and practicality. For a lot of guitarists, the S body style is the most effective, comfortable shape to play.
For a concrete example of an "iconic", yet clearly functional design feature: the top point of the "S" is where the front strap hook is. Having this point protrude forwards (along the neck) helps balance the weight and this provides the player with physical control over the mass of the guitar.
Many of the subtle features of Stratocaster body are obvious practical improvements -- it's the result of filing down sharp edges that were noticed when attempting the play the instrument. Imagine you're starting from a classical acoustic design, what steps would you take to make it more playable and make it electric at the same time?
It's an incremental design built on forms that have been used by luthiers for centuries. It's not a Fender shape -- it's an (electric) guitar shape.
I wish them (and their PE overlords) a powerful defeat, ideally in a court of law, but if not, in the court of public opinion.
2) Fender sued said small Chinese Aliexpress vendor in a regional German court for selling a "copied" design in Germany
3) The small Chinese guitar vendor didn't turn up, obviously
4) Fender got a default judgement that the S-type (Stratocaster etc.) guitar body shape (which has indisputably been in the public domain in the USA since 2009) is a "functional work of art" in which they have copyright.
5) Fender's weird law firm went on a rampage, in the EU and USA, using said default judgement as if it represents some kind of precedent, warning guitar firms (PRS included) and music retailers to stop selling them, recall and destroy their inventory on sale in the EU, and confirm they had done so, or be sued
6) guitar people, especially luthiers working in the USA who have solid reason to believe the S shape is public domain, took that about as well as you'd expect
7) Fender tried to walk it back, especially the bit about smashing perfectly good guitars
8) Thomann, based in Germany, certainly Fender's largest retailer outside the USA and one of the biggest music retailers in the world, have decided not to take it lying down.
Have seen several like this in the last months, though in much more niche areas and with barely any publicity.
So the whole thing really looks like legal bullying.
The S-type body shape has been in the public domain in the USA since 2009. One of the luthiers that Fender sent a C&D has hired the lawyer who secured that 2009 judgement against Fender, and he has been quite withering.
Fender have a huge uphill struggle here, and they clearly do not understand just how much time hobby guitarists with money spend watching Youtube. Big mistake.
Am I missing something about Germany following a precedent system for patent/copyright or something, or is this even dumber than it sounds?
Sorry, I rushed through my comment and perhaps didn't make it clear.
They have a default judgement only. But they used it to demand US-based manufacturers recall European-bound inventory, destroy it and certify it destroyed.
Even though they know full well that inventory can legally be sold in the USA — which is part of the near-comical gaslighting walkback the FMIC CEO attempted the other day. They are already admitting it's not a USA thing.
Except this one is apparently coming from actual accredited lawyers? (Who knows, I'm not a lawyer, maybe it really does work that way and Fender is the first company to figure out how to exploit this)
Because the only way Trump Guitars can sell an LP-type guitar to US customers is that Gibson also lost a body-shape case like this (to Washburn, if I remember right?)
But the thing is, if the counterfeit had a Fender logo and a Fender Strat style headstock, they could simply have used trademarks to deal with that — because they do have internationally recognised trademarks and the specific headstock shape is one.
They instead claimed something rather more broad and contentious that has not been tested in court in the EU but is fully at odds with 17 years of guitar industry business built on a legal finding in the USA.
A cynic would say that FMIC knew the vendor would not turn up and fight.
Worse part is that lefty fenders always have something fucked because they put zero care into them, despite charging a premium for them.
Fender doesnt even make a good product. I've pulled strat style guitars out of dumpsters that were better than a fender.