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Fender CEO Admits Mistakes Over Stratocaster Legal Threats | GuitarBomb (guitarbomb.com)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/guitars@lemmy.world
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Fender CEO Bud Cole acknowledged in a Bloomberg interview that the company's legal crackdown against 60 guitar builders over Stratocaster body shape copied "got ahead of us." Of roughly 60 companies targeted, 32 are negotiating with Fender and 18 have signed agreements. The company now claims focus on large manufacturers only, though boutique builders like LSL Instruments report no clear relief from legal threats.

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[–] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Now I feel conflicted with the yard sale Behringer Strat knockoff I have, considering Behringer’s grey area.

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    I mean, it's pretty clear that companies have been copying the overall shape. But that's because Fender didn't try to obtain the copyrights for 50 years! So I don't see any conflict in calling out Behringer for infringing copyrights while calling also calling out Fender for trying to enforce copyrights that they were denied 20 years ago.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago

    they tried to trademark in the u.s. and got shot down. the whole thing started now because of a default judgement granted in europe against a chinese seller of cheap knockoffs. there was never even the hint of a possibility of a trial there because they would never have showed up to defend. the default judgement was basically handed to them, and they took advantage and went straight for the jugular of basically every manufacturer they could find.

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