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Post subject: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 12:17 pm
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On another website forum there has been quite a few threads lately concerning the use or misuse of the Fender logo. The main examples have been Mighty Mite and Allparts necks. In both examples shown the seller has not hidden the fact that the guitars have or are built from aftermarket parts. The debate seems to revolve around the usage of the headstock logo. Both companies I have listed are "Licensed/Authorized" for the sale of replacement necks for Fender guitars. They do not offer logos as far as I could tell. Is it against the law to apply a Fender logo for personal use? If you sell an item without disclosing the fact it's not "Fender", I would think that would be fraud and punishable. Anyone that could shed any light on this issue would be appreciated.


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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 3:23 pm
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The key word here is Replacement necks. It's a quality control issue,I just finished building up my Stratopartster, I freehanded the Fender Logo. There is no mistaking that it is not a genuine logo, however, the body is an MIA standard and the neck is a Squier, both initially Fender products, actually everything on it are various Fender Parts, but, it wasn't assembled as it is today by Fender.

The name Fender if you notice there is a small " R" at the end of the Fender logo which stands for registered trademark. Also in a Strat there are various parts with patents that are owned by Fender.

Fender is a brand name owned by FMI Corporation and any use of it's name without their consent on any merchandise or products is a copyright infrigement as well as a misappropriation of their brand.

The only way to have a Fender neck legally is to have your guitar sent back to Fender and they decide wether it meets their criteria.
I'm aware a lot of people are doing this but it is illegal to sell a Fender branded parts assembled guitar that did not originate from Fender as an entire working instrument.

When you slap on an aftermarket decal, you are taking a chance, if you get caught, You've been warned. It's not worth the risk and the major legal hassle.

Think of it as if someone is running around using your name in whatever they may be doing. :wink:

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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:21 pm
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This is your proverbial can of worms.
To answer the original poster it IS illegal to apply a Fender logo. Plenty of people do it to partscasters and homebuilds but technically it is wrong. It's really a conscious decision you have to make.

I don't want to hijack your thread here but I often wonder what the situation is in cases of Pro musicians using heavily modified or handbuilt guitars which are then branded Gibson or Fender. I've read that Slash's main Les Paul was built by some custom guitar builder. Then why does it have the Gibson logo on the headstock?

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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:43 pm
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I always wondered why Slash's non-Gibson made Les Paul has the Gibson logo on it too,especially where Gibson has been all too quick to jump on copyright infringements in the past.

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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:24 pm
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guitslinger wrote:
I always wondered why Slash's non-Gibson made Les Paul has the Gibson logo on it too,especially where Gibson has been all too quick to jump on copyright infringements in the past.


Gibson is taking a risk, albeit a miniscule one. If they fail to aggressively protect their trademarks, they could lose them. In this case, insignificant risk posed by a single instance of not policing their trademark is far outweighed by the free publicity they are gaining.


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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 8:09 pm
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mhainz wrote:
This is your proverbial can of worms.
To answer the original poster it IS illegal to apply a Fender logo. Plenty of people do it to partscasters and homebuilds but technically it is wrong. It's really a conscious decision you have to make.

I don't want to hijack your thread here but I often wonder what the situation is in cases of Pro musicians using heavily modified or handbuilt guitars which are then branded Gibson or Fender. I've read that Slash's main Les Paul was built by some custom guitar builder. Then why does it have the Gibson logo on the headstock?


This is strictly speculation on my part but my guess is that whoever the Custom Builder is it had to go thru Gibson's channels to get approved, let's face it it is common that high profile artists have their own custom builders build their personal models.
It is common place in the sports of Cycling and ski-racing where a small custom builder will make the frames for a cyclist or GS and SL skis for a ski racer then the sponsor's logo's are applied.

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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 8:41 pm
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About a year ago, we ran a long, rather heated thread on the topic of the ethics and morality of selling parts such as neck plates and even COA's apart from the guitars they originated from. As previously stated, aftermarket manufacturer's of Fender authorized replacement necks are not permitted to place the logo on the neck. In the pure sense, doing that, even for personal use, could be considered a violation of trademark law in that the neck is truly not Fender and you would be holding out to the uniformed that the guitar you were playing is indeed a genuine Fender guitar. If the trademark is that important to an individual, that person ought to purchase and display the real deal. Other than that, find some distinctive art to decorate the head stock with. For one, I've seen Joe Walsh perform with a Strat-type guitar with a 'naked' headstock.

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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:39 am
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53magnatone wrote:
I'm aware a lot of people are doing this but it is illegal to sell a Fender branded parts assembled guitar that did not originate from Fender as an entire working instrument.


Please cite the specific federal and/or state statues that make this a violation of intellectual property law......counselor.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:55 am
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe trademark laws and copyright laws are similar in the sense that as long as you don't use the trademark/copyright to make money then it is legal. So in that thought, applying the logo shouldn't be illegal, but selling exact copies of said logo would be the crime.
Not a fact here, just a thought.
Myself personally, I wouldn't put a Fender logo on a custom built guitar, I would much rather put my own custom logo on it.

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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 7:22 am
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Retroverbial wrote:
53magnatone wrote:
I'm aware a lot of people are doing this but it is illegal to sell a Fender branded parts assembled guitar that did not originate from Fender as an entire working instrument.


Please cite the specific federal and/or state statues that make this a violation of intellectual property law......counselor.

Arjay


Those on the Forum who may have followed my commentaries during our classic 'bruha' of last year, as well as my observations made for the benefit of one of our members who was 'modifiying' the Fender logo using logoscript, for his now well-known "Frankenstrat" project (which you can search in the files) are already familiar with the 'source' I used on their behalfs in the matters. Copyright law does not apply here. Trademark law does. The nature of the law is voluminous both with respect to Federal and international situations.
The Warmoth website has within it a copy of the agreement which exists between them and FMIC with respect to the use of the Tele and Fender headstock on replacement necks, which provides an interesting insight into these issues. I can't give you chapter and verse as you request, but only transmit to you the sense of what had been given to me during considerable conversation with a friend during our morning commutes together. If you wish to contact this internationally recognized intellectual properties attorney who represents the interests of multinational corporations and public figures of note, I can provide you with his email address and advise him, beforehand, that I am referring a potential client who has a question to put to him. :idea: I can assure you that you will be remiss in not doing so.

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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 7:30 am
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Retroverbial wrote:
53magnatone wrote:
I'm aware a lot of people are doing this but it is illegal to sell a Fender branded parts assembled guitar that did not originate from Fender as an entire working instrument.


Please cite the specific federal and/or state statues that make this a violation of intellectual property law......counselor.

Arjay


By quoting just the above in your response, it is now out of context since the rest of my post is missing, as far as citing a specific law, I'm not going to do that since I do not
have a statute in my library.
(The key part of that statement is.. Fender branded...Parts Assembled)
I do know ( without a doubt ) that from following history on this whole subject. When you assemble a strat (clone ) from aftermarket parts and then advertise it for sale as a Fender strat with a fake matching Fender decal it is fraud.
As it was is for a Painting in the style of say Van Gogh or Cesanne or Picasso complete with a matching signature of the artist.

Say you bought an actual Custom Deluxe, then changed the bridge, tuners, pickups in short it has been altered from it's original state. If you sell it, you must let the buyer know that it is not stock and has been altered.
If you look at the fine print with any Fender strat it is specific in saying that any alteration voids the warranty, also the warranty is void unless you are the original purchaser.
That refers to complexities in the laws regarding trademarks Brand identification. Not to mention plenty of litigation concerning " I bought this with the belief it was that but it isn't so "

The last thing I'll say is that you can argue semantics and split hairs for the rest of eternity but all one has to do is look up the definition of the little "R" after the Fender logo..

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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 7:58 am
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TimDrakeMusic wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong

Well OK, but only because you asked...
TimDrakeMusic wrote:
I believe trademark laws and copyright laws are similar in the sense that as long as you don't use the trademark/copyright to make money then it is legal.

Nope, that's entirely wrong. For starters, trademark and copyright law are not similar, they are two different and distinct things, though they both relate to "intellectual property rights".

With copyright it is illegal to reproduce copyrighted material regardless whether you make money from it or not. A very obvious example is music file sharing on the internet.

I'm sure you want to tell me about kids in school photocopying books for their studies. That is an instance to which the publishing world politely turns a blind eye, but it is not an exception enshrined in law.

With written material there are some limited exceptions. There is the concept of "fair usage": a short extract of up to 400 words can be copied in the context of a review or similar, though that does not apply to poetry or song lyrics where 400 words would in all probability exceed the entire work.

In fact, there is an interesting issue with song lyrics: any quoting of lyrics is illegal. For example, authors often want to quote a line from a song in their novel - and if their agent, editor or publisher doesn't stop them they later find themselves paying astonishing sums of recompense to save themselves being dragged through the courts. There was a charming example of a writer who thought it nice to use a different Beatles lyric for each chapter heading in his book. He lost half the book's income as a result.

On the other hand, a fascinating exception is that there is no copyright on titles. If you want to call your novel Gone With the Wind or your album Dark Side of the Moon nobody can stop you.

So now we're all looking forward to Dark Side of the Moon by Tim Drake. So long as it doesn't contain any music or lyrics from the Floyd's version it is perfectly legal. Amazingly uncool, but legal... :lol:

Cheers - C

PS: this stuff is my wife's job. The above info is reliable.

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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 8:13 am
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53magnatone wrote:
Say you bought an actual Custom Deluxe, then changed the bridge, tuners, pickups in short it has been altered from it's original state.........


.......and if you want to split hairs to the nth degree here's what it boils down to as far as I have been given to understand in other matters: If you change 'one hair' on that Custom Deluxe...it is no longer a Custom Deluxe. In that regard, and even more thinly sliced. If you replace any Stratocaster component with non-Fender part, or any part that would not routinely found on a Stratocaster it is no longer considered by law, to be a Stratocaster, but rather an S-type guitar. A Stratocaster, or any other Fender brand product is defined strictly by its components specifications which, once altered, change the definition and the permissibility of the use of the name.

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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 8:18 am
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guitslinger wrote:
I always wondered why Slash's non-Gibson made Les Paul has the Gibson logo on it too,especially where Gibson has been all too quick to jump on copyright infringements in the past.

Is it really a known fact that Slash plays non-Gibson Les Pauls ... or is this a myth? I just find it incredibly hard to believe that Slash with his signature Gibson line plays a non-Gibson Les Paul that says "Gibson" on the headstock. Slash is one of Gibson's biggest endorsers. I am not surprised he does not play his signature guitars as lots of artists do not. But to play a Gibson Les Paul that was not even made by Gibson?? And where is the info coming from? Surely not Slash ... Maybe it is true, but - without some real facts - this is all craziness and heresay, to me.

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Post subject: Re: Fender logo on aftermarket products, legal?
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 9:41 am
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01GT eibach wrote:
guitslinger wrote:
I always wondered why Slash's non-Gibson made Les Paul has the Gibson logo on it too,especially where Gibson has been all too quick to jump on copyright infringements in the past.

Is it really a known fact that Slash plays non-Gibson Les Pauls ... or is this a myth?

You're actually putting the cart before the horse. He came on to the scene playing LP replicas. That's been a known fact for years. Far be it for Gibson to look a gift horse in the mouth at this point in his career. All he can be is a huge plus for them to sell product. Similarly with ZZTop. Many of their instruments are 'brand-type' in appearance, but logo free, and built on order by a luthier with whom they have been doing business for years. Don't cry for them Argentina......they doth bestride the world like a Colossus whilst we mere mortals crawl between their legs seeking dishonorable graves.

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