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cmon that comparsion is a ridiculous stretch.
Originally Posted by jzucker
headstocks are already trademarked, that's not relevant. yes the suhr body shape is slightly different...but , is the guitar below a strat, an LSL or a suhr classic S?
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05-29-2026 09:14 AM
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That's obviously a Tarts Classic
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Yeah the similarity of design is not the issue here lol.
This ship has sailed. I think they had a moral right to it 70 years ago and it’s baffling to me why they didn’t protect their designs more. Which are just to be clear iconic 20th century masterpieces designed by a brilliant team who have long passed away.
But now, it just comes across as desperation, an attempt to bully smaller makers by suddenly moving the legal goalposts that have been in place for decades and claim a market monopoly. It seems legally it’s a bit of a frivolous one as well a far as I can tell.
Why support Fender now on a moral basis? It’s not like anyone who actually designed these instruments still works there. It’s a company trading on a legacy that it inherited through various buy outs.
It’s typical modern corporate behaviour, and it deservedly led to this almighty PR debacle. I always enjoy laughing at a bit of stupidity, and these days my cup overfloweth.
OTOH It’s not like any actual professional players really respect fenders instruments that much any more. People would rather play the entirely minging PRS silver sky in preference to a modern fender lol. Because it’s better.
Tbh I think anyone sticking up for Fender is a bit of a dweeb.
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The PRS Silver Sky is interesting, because the body looks 100% strat to me, but the neck is three-on-a-side. It's like they were pointedly (no pun intended) respecting the headstock infringement issue, which has been the standard for decades. In general, the Fender™ headstock shape is the accepted line not to cross.
The strat design is very futuristic in a 1950s kind of way. The name references the stratosphere, the way the body seems like frozen motion, going up to the headstock that can cut thru the atmosphere. So for PRS to cut it off with that stubby thing, it completely destroys the flow. In my opinion it's a really bad design.
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Even if Fender should get sole rights to the Strat body, or force others to license the shape, they still have the fairly significant competitor of 70+ years of their own product. If we made the thought experiment that no new strats of any make was made from this day on, my hunch is that it would take years for any shortage to appear. There are an incredible number of them out there, and anyone looking for a Fender have the pick of the litter - new or old, beat up or in new condition, any kind of pickups under the moon, etc.
I still think Fender will fail in this venture. As they should, not having protected their IP in time
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i dont know why they didnt protect their designs better years ago either. but the guitar community knows the history of where the strat came from quite well...and the market is lousy with these erector set guitars for no other reason than theyre cheap/easy to build and sell. fender-style guitars have over saturated the market and im rooting for widespread industry change and disruption. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
fwiw after following your posts a long time, i thought youd be above childish name calling.
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I'm definitely buying a Fender now. LOL Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Why would you do that to yourself just to spite me? Originally Posted by DawgBone
I feel guilty now
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I don't know, there may be more to this than meets the eye, today. When organised teams of corporate lawyers do things that make you scratch your head in wonder, one might suspect that the apparent foolishness represents just the "foot in the door" that leads to something that makes sense.
It might be more about branding and advertising than physical sales.
This thing has echos of what we saw in the emergence of "product placement" in movies and TV. It's not good enough to include a vague red and white can as a prop. You have to imagine that the script included instruction to hold the can of soft drink in an orientation that clearly presented the products brand label (and someone on set made sure of that).
To me it likely portends the future of music/media produced by AI. This new "guitar is a work of art" approach may not work so much now as later - when an increasing proportion of the time you hear and see a guitar both sound and image is an AI product. Like the product placement instructions, AI must make sure that the product branding is clear, and that it represents the advertiser's real product and not an imaginary clone.
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I think there’s potential for a silver sky.. ahem… silver lining in the unlikely event of any of this going Fender’s way. Originally Posted by spencer096
I too would like more imagination in guitar design. The issue has been that everyone really wanted Gibson and Fender because those brands are so iconic (finally, a justified use of this term) the more original designs fell by the wayside.
I think one can hold that opinion and also hold the opinion that Fender should go do one.
There’s been some signs of life lately. What helps is that I think the Fender and Gibson hegemony just isn’t as established with younger players as it was for my cohort.
I am of course a massive hypocrite because despite saying I want more diversity in the guitar market, the guitars I actually own are a Tele, a 335, a 175 etc.
What would ever have made you think that? Of course I’m not above that sort of thing.fwiw after following your posts a long time, i thought youd be above childish name calling.
That said, I don’t like bullies. I have friends who have been at the pointy end of lawsuits like these and it is not fun for them.
Excusing that sort of bad behaviour is not something I have much respect for, to be honest.
Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkLast edited by Christian Miller; 05-29-2026 at 11:30 AM.
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I had a recent Fender American Professional II Tele for a while. A guy put it up on my local Craigslist for not enough money, so I bought it. It was a strange buying experience, as he had a living room full of pretty much unplayed guitars, amps and effects. But I digress.
I liked the guitar, but I did not care for the "innovations" so much (the weird, sculpted neck heel and the push pull pot for the boost on two pickup mode just did not thrill me.) But at least there is some innovation, and I bet a lot of players like those changes. I put the guitar back on Craigslist after a few months for not enough and away it went. I think they are priced about where they should be. If I liked them and wanted a new one, I would have no qualms about buying a new one and being a "Dweeb" in the eyes of some. Whatever the hell a "Dweeb" is.
I have my issues with the way big corporations do business a lot, as I have always been what is called a "mom and pop" small businessman, I guess I think differently about how I have to run my businesses. But I am an unwoke capitalist to the core, so however a corporate entity wants to do business is, IMO, up to them. I do think the free market will reward or punish bad decisions. I also think that all people in business have a right to their intellectual property, but this sure looks like a patent issue and the patent time, if it were granted back in the day is long expired. I am pretty sure that Fender made a bad move here. The legal basis is thin, and they do look like a corporate bully (not a good look). Of course, in today's world of social media angst, I suspect, this will all be soon forgotten, and the mass anger will be directed at some new target in short order. What a world!
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I've been astonished at the amount of support I've seen for Fender. Say what you will about Gibson—their "smoky barroom" argument against PRS and the "Play Authentic" hostage video are both rightly ridiculed—I get their position: they've got to defend these trademarks, or they'll lose them; that's the way the system works.
Of course Fender developed the strat body style—and when they did, they trademarked everything that didn't have a clear root in functionality. Perhaps they could've fought harder on some of the design elements back in the day, but they didn't, and those design elements entered into the public domain—these designs belong to all of us now, as all intellectual property rightly should, after the people who developed it have a reasonable but not infinitely-long period of time to profit off of it, in a way that will incentivize new ideas without creating a permanent landed gentry of IP feudalism.
You own Mickey Mouse now—why are we trying to give him back to Disney? Especially in a moment where companies have scrubbed the whole of human knowledge without giving anyone a dime, and are racing to sell it back to us at a premium—conversations around what can and can't be owned, and about how long we let people profit off of it, seem pretty critical right now.
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The class action suits against the AI companies will arrive shortly. And perhaps they will A) be well deserved, and B) do more to rein in AI than any well-intentioned legislation ever could. Originally Posted by j.l
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Without wading too deeply into waters best left to other threads (or, uh, avoided altogether), I'm very glad we've got this Pope right now. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
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For the record I didn’t say I think you’re a dweeb if you buy a Fender. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
I am a dweeb, and I own a Fender. But this is correlation, not causation.
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If he quoted Lord of the Rings, do you think he’s read Dune? Originally Posted by j.l
One thing that I think has been amazing about AI is the way it has opened discussions about what art is, the nature of human creativity and the value of the process. When the Suno guy says ‘you have spend so much boring work to learn to play music’ you have a profound disconnect from why musicians follow the path of music that is really interesting.
I don’t think you can hold the technological tide back, but disruptive change is complex and leads to unexpected results. Music was machine-like and generic for a long time before AI music became mainstream. Perhaps we’ll see a rediscovery of humanity in music.
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Chicago kid who writes his first encyclical about robots? This guy is definitely a dweeb who's read Dune (complimentary). Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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That made me think of Gibson's Robot tuners. I wonder how much money Gibson spent developing and patenting that idea? The free market spoke up quite well with regards to that innovation. You pay your money and you take your chances. Originally Posted by j.l
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It’s funny how everyone’s a science fiction reader now. Originally Posted by j.l
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I should have been a rock player
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That’s the curse of being a jazz player. Originally Posted by joe2758
Knowing you’d be way happier playing rock, but you can’t fall out of love with jazz.
It’s like a mental disease.
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And very appropriate for this thread, Mimi Fox once told me that if she was a Strat playing rock guitarist (her words), that she would have been way better off financially in life. And sadly, she is probably right. Originally Posted by joe2758
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Judging from what I hear of touring life these days, this may no longer be the case.
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I felt the same way but after trying my wife's recent '22 mexican thinline tele purchase I approve of the sculpted neck heel and accordingly non-traditional neck plate. It was just enough to make upper fret work easier, and IMO is worth having if you spend a lot of time up top. As for pickups, I always prefer traditional pickups and traditional wiring though I've had a couple humbucker equipped coil splitting axes that sounded surprisingly good to me, though I would never personally utilize them. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
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This is important. Fender’s biggest competitor has always been Fender. Leo’s original designs were borderline agricultural, and therefore as sturdy as a very sturdy thing. Why buy new when there are so many perfectly functional used guitars and amps available—apart from wanting a specific new model? Originally Posted by Average Joe
It makes the current move look all the more desperate.
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