veatch Posted Thursday at 08:41 PM Posted Thursday at 08:41 PM Cease and Desist should go up to 0. 1 1 3 Quote
The Shark Posted Friday at 06:56 PM Posted Friday at 06:56 PM F' Fender...courtesy of Danocaster. 6 Quote
DaveL Posted Friday at 09:57 PM Posted Friday at 09:57 PM If Danocaster and the guy in Spain with really high end copies had to rely on their own body styles, I think we all know how that would go. Not sure why they can’t at least pay a licensing fee 2 Quote
Steve Haynie Posted Friday at 11:08 PM Posted Friday at 11:08 PM 1 hour ago, DaveL said: Not sure why they can’t at least pay a licensing fee Perhaps that is the plan. Fender would make money off of guitars in which they have no investment. 2 Quote
The Shark Posted yesterday at 01:06 AM Posted yesterday at 01:06 AM 3 hours ago, DaveL said: If Danocaster and the guy in Spain with really high end copies had to rely on their own body styles, I think we all know how that would go. Not sure why they can’t at least pay a licensing fee I wonder who really owns the dreadnought body shape... 3 Quote
DaveL Posted yesterday at 01:34 AM Posted yesterday at 01:34 AM (edited) 2 hours ago, Steve Haynie said: Perhaps that is the plan. Fender would make money off of guitars in which they have no investment. So nacho and Danocaster can freely charge 5k using someone else’s design? it’s for truly altruistic purposes, and they’re a friend of all guitarists as long as you have the CASH. lol Edited yesterday at 02:01 AM by DaveL Quote
The Shark Posted yesterday at 02:01 AM Posted yesterday at 02:01 AM My "Ulster" pink relic "parts" guitar... 4 Quote
The Shark Posted yesterday at 02:04 AM Posted yesterday at 02:04 AM An All-Parts licensed body and neck painted by my buddy with Slider's tele pickups (Crooks uses them on occasion)... 3 Quote
The Shark Posted yesterday at 02:07 AM Posted yesterday at 02:07 AM I'm guessing Schecter will be getting the letter. Too late for this one... 2 Quote
The Shark Posted yesterday at 02:08 AM Posted yesterday at 02:08 AM A Charvel 25th Anniversary Edition that got away... 3 Quote
The Shark Posted yesterday at 02:09 AM Posted yesterday at 02:09 AM Another Danocaster breaking the "rules"... 4 Quote
The Shark Posted yesterday at 02:11 AM Posted yesterday at 02:11 AM Well, we don't have to worry about threatening G&L... 3 Quote
The Shark Posted yesterday at 02:13 AM Posted yesterday at 02:13 AM I guess Crooks is out of business because of the "letter"... 3 Quote
The Shark Posted yesterday at 02:15 AM Posted yesterday at 02:15 AM And one more Danocaster... 3 Quote
The Shark Posted yesterday at 02:16 AM Posted yesterday at 02:16 AM My point is the ridiculousness of Fender's claim to a design they didn't defend for decades. Attorneys here know what I mean by that. Fender has ten fingers and there are eleven holes in the boat... 4 Quote
jwhitcomb3 Posted 16 hours ago Posted 16 hours ago 8 hours ago, The Shark said: My point is the ridiculousness of Fender's claim to a design they didn't defend for decades. Attorneys here know what I mean by that. Fender has ten fingers and there are eleven holes in the boat... Okay, I'll bite. I've been a patent lawyer for sixteen years, part of my New Hampshire law firm's intellectual property group of lawyers who practice before the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Which means I know exactly nothing about European copyright law and European judicial precedents. What is interesting to me here is that Fender is not asserting ownership of the functionality of the Stratocaster (which would be a utility patent), the ornamental design of the Stratocaster (which would be a design patent), or the marketplace association of the Stratocaster shape with Fender (which would be a trademark). Instead, Fender is asserting copyright protection in Europe for the Stratocaster as a work of art. I know nothing about the scope of this protection in Europe, or how it may be enforced. Fender is basing its authority upon a European lawsuit that it won by default - basically the other party didn't show up in court to contest the suit. I know nothing about whether this implies Fender indeed has a copyright in Europe, or what rights Fender would have assuming the copyright is valid and enforceable. But Fender has started out sending cease and desist letters based on this default judgment. In the US such letters act to put the recipient on notice of Fender's legal claim, and gives the recipient the opportunity to comply with Fender's demands. Or else. Or else what? Two thought come to mind. One is that Fender would negotiate a license with the recipient. Another is that Fender files a court action. Here, Fender may assume it has sufficient grounds to win such a case on its merits. Or Fender may assume that the recipients don't have the financial ability to litigate the matter, in which case Fender again wins by default. I'm a US patent lawyer, and I can't preduct how all this might shake out under European copyright law. But thankfully, YouTube influencers and social media gurus are all experts. You should believe them, and confidently post your predictions far and wide. 4 3 3 Quote
hamerhead Posted 12 hours ago Posted 12 hours ago 3 hours ago, jwhitcomb3 said: ...But thankfully, YouTube influencers and social media gurus are all experts. You should believe them, and confidently post your predictions far and wide. Made me laugh out loud. I assume Fender didn't initially pursue it because nobody was making copies on a large scale way back then. But now that there's a million companies making a living off Fender's design, I get it. What I don't get is the waiting 50+ years to do it. 3 Quote
The Shark Posted 12 hours ago Posted 12 hours ago 24 minutes ago, hamerhead said: What I don't get is the waiting 50+ years to do it. Precisely. No vigorous defense until now? These "letters" are worth the paper they're written on. Fender won't spend the legal dough to go after a guy that makes sixty guitars a year. They just won't. I'm an accountant for 31 years. They would be throwing money away, unless they go after large companies making thousands of "Strats" and "Teles". 2 Quote
kizanski Posted 12 hours ago Posted 12 hours ago (edited) MuZanski Enterprises is bracing itself for the inevitable C&D letter... Edited 8 hours ago by kizanski 3 2 Quote
jwhitcomb3 Posted 11 hours ago Posted 11 hours ago (edited) 1 hour ago, The Shark said: Precisely. No vigorous defense until now? These "letters" are worth the paper they're written on. Fender won't spend the legal dough to go after a guy that makes sixty guitars a year. They just won't. I'm an accountant for 31 years. They would be throwing money away, unless they go after large companies making thousands of "Strats" and "Teles". The legal strategy would be for Fender to go after some of the small fish first and win some cases for relatively small money, which would establish a trail of precedent and make the bigger fish think twice about challenging them. Edited 11 hours ago by jwhitcomb3 3 Quote
LucSulla Posted 3 hours ago Posted 3 hours ago 6 hours ago, jwhitcomb3 said: The legal strategy would be for Fender to go after some of the small fish first and win some cases for relatively small money, which would establish a trail of precedent and make the bigger fish think twice about challenging them. 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? 2 Quote
The Shark Posted 1 hour ago Posted 1 hour ago 10 hours ago, kizanski said: MuZanski Enterprises is bracing itself for the inevitable C&D letter... Tell 'em to F'off... Quote
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