LucSulla

Apparently, never, nor was he the sole designer of the strat. Nor was there ever a transfer of copyright between him and CBS when CBS bought the company, more than likely because one was never assumed to exist. I'm not sure when circumstantial evidence becomes material, but it sure is weird that with all of those sales of Fender of the years that no contracts around the ownership of the Stratocaster copyright ever took place. Seems like a pretty valuable piece of intellectual property to happen to forget about when selling a company to new owners. The fact that FEIC DID trademark and copyright this and that, thus indicating that were aware that intellectual property was a thing and that it needed to be officially documented and/or enforced, depending on what type it was, can't help. Fender even trademarked the P Bass then never enforced it. There is a pretty extensive papertrail of FEIC (OG Fender Company Pre-CBS) having never designed around aesthetics per se but from a solely utilitarian approach and that they had little interest in policing their designs, which should be just poison for arguing there is anything here deserving of copyright protection, should doing a lot of work there. There's actually more evidence that Leo thought it was awesome if other people thought his designs were so good that they imitated them. It's always seemed to me that date of creation, chain of ownership, and some clear intent to protect something are of paramount importance in intellectual property disputes. Fender did none of this for nearly half a century with the stratocaster, even marketing themselves as an original in a see of clones quite often in the 80s and 90s. They were openly acknowledging the ubiquity of the strat design for two decades and not lifting a finger about it legally, according to that attorney's response to Fender's initial notice. I would think that would all be far too much to overcome, but I am just a pastiche of a copyright attorney. I'd be curious what actual IP lawyers think.

^Man, that attorney really bodied Fender in my amateur opinion.

I would have preferred to just read this, but I can't find it and am left to a "reaction" video Nonetheless, the response by the lawyer representing a group of builders makes it seem like Fender's case in Germany was really, really slapdash. A lot of the basic facts claimed by Fender in the case are just objectively inaccurate and rather embarrassing to hear listed out now that there is an attorney presenting an actual defense.

I'm not a lawyer, but I have written a bit about the history of copyright law in some of my published work, as it touches on some of my areas of scholarship. That's pretty much exactly what the German case was it seems. Copyright law is fairly similar among all the Berne Convention countries, of which the US and Germany are both signatories. That doesn't mean decisions one country is necessarily enforceable by all, but they are all working under similar rules. It's just as weird in Germany as it is in the US to pursue a copyright for design. I guess the argument goes something like thisL A. Fender lost a trademark case in 2009 due to the court ruling it never really policed the strat as trademark. B. Fender needed to try another area of intellectual property, and copyright was the only one left (the others being patents, trademarks, and trade secrets). C. Fender sued a AliExpress product in a German regional court with some history of ruling that later become precedent in the EU. D. Fender sued a product that was a clone. E. Fender thought that it would likely be a default judgement because the Chinese counterfeit company likely would not show up to defend itself. F. Fender has now backdoored its way into copyrighting the strat body in the EU without having to litigate if it was really something that could be copyrighted, which was the actual purpose from the start. The speculation is that they can now use this decision to begin building some kind of new case for owning the strat body style and that these threats may be as much about showing they are now working to protect their copyright, as to avoid same ruling as the 2009 case. What I don't know due to not being a lawyer is: To what end exactly? Do they want to establish the copyright here as well? Do they think they can revisit it as a trademark? Can you even do that again since there is a ruling? Would this stretch to use copyright for a guitar style by saying it's a "work of art" actually hold up if anyone showed up to defend themselves? And if any or all of these are true, can you effectively use an EU ruling as precedent here?

I chipped in to help fund LSL's lawsuit against Fender. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-defend-s-style-guitars Seriously, fuck Fender for this. I know there are some great guitar builders who work there, but this is just everything I hate about business today.

The did it in Germany by going after copyright infringement vs. trademark infringement. They claimed the stratocaster body is a "work of art" based on the body of a woman. Annnnd they also brought it against a Chinese counterfeit product where the defendant didn't even present a defense, so they won basically by default.

I bought a "Bikini Sunset" Jackson Fusion from that guy back before the pandemic. Actually put a bid in that got accepted while playing a gig. I kept thinking about it while I was playing, and after a couple of drinks to make what was probably a bad decision seem like a good one, I started haggling between songs.

My favorite DAC story is actually Waylon's story about threatening to kick his ass back in the 70s.

I never hated on Gibson nearly as much as some. I thought they made some goofy shit, but being 100% honest, I've owned quite a few Henry-era Gibsons with 0 issues. I think I'm on my third SG, and I've owned six LPs from that era, two Explorers, one Flying V Pro, one 335 Studio, and one Firebird. One of the LPs kinda sucked, but all the rest were good guitars aside from the occasional garbage nut. A lot of them, I wish I still had (well, I do have four of them still), and those that I don't have anymore are really more a question of taste than there being a problem with them. And as cringe as the Firebird X was and similar guitars, I can't say that's really any worse than the "Play Authentic" crap and hammering smaller builders like Dean.

I didn't need to know that Gibson was capable of making a neck like this. It's definitely very non-traditional of them, but damn, does it work for metal.

This is such a slick cover.

Thanks! This will be my third one. I imagine it will mostly see the house because it isn't like anyone around Oxford is playing Down or COC covers. Good news is that I could absolutely murder someone with this aluminum case though.

Before (seller's pic): After:

All of this Corrosion of Conformity talk on the thread a couple of weeks back made me take another shot at an SG. I need a dedicated guitar for tuning to D standard. Found a pretty good deal on a 2016 SG HP someone had thoughtfully improve, i.e., removing the G-Force tuner. I thought the titanium nut and the sculpted heel were cool ideas. I like the thought of easily being able to raise and lower the nut, particularly for something I am going to set up for DOOM. What I was not prepared for was the "soloist" neck. Gibson wasn't joking around by calling it a "soloist" neck because it feels exactly like my 98 Jackson Soloist. You may like or hate that depending on preference, but I think it is pretty cool. Maybe I will actually keep an SG for once. I also have swapped some pups on a tobacco burst LP traditional and threw in some Gravelin pups he made for me awhile back. I sold the guitar they were in, but kept the pickups. Proof positive that modern LPs have a more pronounce arch than the Norlin era LPC they came out of. The treble pickup ring cracked IMMEDIATELY. Should have thought of that before I thought of that!

I like that they have the Alex Skolnick guy (Russ) and a Kerry King guy (not-Russ).