Thought KDH’s latest video was pretty interesting. Not sure if this will end up shaking the whole industry (in Europe) or if it will ultimately be a storm in a teacup.
For those who haven’t watched it seems Fender have just won a big court case in Germany that specifically stop one Chinese company selling Strat copies in the EU… the question is whether Fender will now get bold and start chasing others
Will be interesting to see how this develops but my money is on “storm in a teacup”.
Still, makes me even more glad that I went for a G&L.
The other possibility is that with this judgement they take a play out of the Gibson playbook - if you can’t beat them, sue them! They are seeing all of the cheap copies killing their business and it’s the only way to stop the rot. Even a Squier looks expensive when you can get something from China that doesn’t even have 3 digits in the price - it’s completely irrelevant whether those instruments are any good or not, there’s plenty of new players that know nothing about guitars but they know that 99 Euros is a lot less than 199 Euros!
But are the cheap copies really killing their business? I doubt anything could put a dent in the Fender juggernaut. They have massive market recognition. New players might not know anything much about guitars but I can guarantee that if you ask them to name a brand then 99% will say Fender. And even if they do start off with a cheap Chinese copy, they will still aspire to one day own a Fender.
Temu gives a 10% discount #Dodgy-Strat.Com
Ok killing their business might be an exaggeration but they’ll still see it as money that could be in their pockets. That can be either in sales directly lost to copies or just the fact they are having to price Squier stuff lower than they’d really want to just to somewhat compete with the cheap copies
Exactly! That’s what it all comes down to in the end.
It could end up being quite a game of whack-a-mole for them if they go after every Chinese brand in Europe… we’ve all seen the alphabet soup of brands that Amazon sells. Kill off one and ten more appear! That’s not to say they shouldn’t protect their business, just highlighting how much of an uphill task I see it as being
It’s interesting that the arena of dispute has shifted from trademark to copyright. Like most musicians, I thought the matter was settled once it was deemed that Fender had forfeited protection of the Stratocaster body shape as a trademark, by not having defended it for half a century or more. To now have a decision effectively going the other way seems to beg an avalanche of appeals and counter-suits.
Yes, that is interesting. How long has this court case been going on? I can’t help wondering if there is some connection to Fender acquiring the Leo Fender name when G&L folded. Does that mean they also acquired his intellectual property?
