Fender was always going to do this

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]You've seen it on social media. You've seen the videos on YouTube.

[00:00:04]Fender has gone scorched earth. They are pulling in every single bit of legal power they can to try and go after anyone who's selling a Strat-shaped object throughout the EU.

[00:00:14]It's not the first time they've tried to do this.

[00:00:16]And I'm not here to discuss the merits of the case or anything like that. I'm here to discuss why those of us who know how business works knew this was going to happen.

[00:00:26]It's not the first time they've actually gone after people for the body shape.

[00:00:30]If we go here and we take a bit of a look, in 2009, they lost a copyright case in the US.

[00:00:36]Long story short, the brand, the company back in the '70s, when they were headed by CBS, didn't actually fight off all of the copies. So, the Japanese instruments that were coming in, that were being sold, and all the other derivatives of it, they they they didn't care. The famous lawsuit that everyone knows from that era, which was between what would eventually become Hoshino USA, does brands like Ibanez and likes, and Gibson, that was there that gave them the ability to fight and to keep out all those headstock shapes out of there.

[00:01:08]Eventually, it was determined that the headstock shape of the Telecaster and the Stratocaster were a protected um design, so you couldn't just make a guitar that had an identical headstock, unless you were a parts manufacturer that was making them beforehand and you got grandfathered in. So, we're talking uh WD Music, All Parts, uh Mighty Mite, and Warmoth. That's why on the heel of all of them, they all have a little stamp that says licensed by Fender, cuz Fender don't have a choice. They have to continue licensing that design.

[00:01:40]To understand why they're going after them now, we have to rewind back to 2020.

[00:01:45]This was when Servco Pacific, who was originally a minority shareholder in the company, and eventually one of the larger shareholders, took over complete control. So, they bought out their financial partner, TPG Growth Share, and a few other things and end up the majority stakeholder.

[00:02:02]So, Servco Pacific are a private equity company.

[00:02:06]If you don't know what a private equity company is, you undoubtedly know the end result of what they do. So, one of the most famous ones that's been a victim of private equity, Toys "R" Us, which funnily enough is was owned by KKR. KKR happened to own Gibson, another extremely litigious company. Mhm.

[00:02:28]Who to thunk? Maybe there's a bit of a theme here.

[00:02:32]Yeah, pretty much. So, the whole thing is with private equity is they come in, they buy up companies, and they don't focus on making a product. They don't want a brand that's profitable and ongoing things. They want something that they can basically buy, grow, gut, and sell the shell off. So, they shift debt onto the company, which is a big, big problem for Fender.

[00:02:56]So, if we go over to this wonderful article from fuzzfaced.net, fuzzfaced.net, I should say, these guys have written a really good quality article that basically covers two eras of Fender's management. So, we've got a wonderful one here that covers the end of the CBS era and the purchase by Bill Schultz and crew, which included Servco Pacific as a small investor. So, they held about 5% of it.

[00:03:20]Then they moved over to Western Presidio, who purchased it in 2001. The brand kept pumping along. This is where we had a bit more of an expansion in the brand and the products, eventually moving into direct to consumer. So, you had the websites selling direct to consumer in 2014, the launch of Fender Play as well, which that was a smart move. Like, really it was, cuz this is when we're starting to enter a world of digital, you know, integration.

[00:03:49]Everyone's learning that way, and people want, you know, a modern company.

[00:03:55]Once we get through to 2020, of course, they are taken over by Serve Co Pacific and this is right as we're about to enter the absolute hell that was COVID.

[00:04:06]It was absolutely a great time to be a retailer though. Why? Well, you ended up with a bunch of people stuck at home with some extra cash learning how to play.

[00:04:17]When you're a company like Fender though, what you end up doing is you pump out massive amounts of no products [clears throat] and you're thinking, "Hmm, these good times aren't going to end.

[00:04:28]We're going to keep going and going and going." And then suddenly the market dropped out. So, it was around 2022 when things dropped off.

[00:04:37]And this also tied into an overall strategy as well, which allowed them to lay off experienced staff, people who knew what they were doing, and maintain a leaner, more contract-focused, and less, you know, I believe there was some union stuff involved as well with the at least the American company American factory so they could reduce prices there. And also meant a reducing quality, which a lot of dealers started seeing. I was never a Fender dealer.

[00:05:04]Never had any interest in them. I saw enough of them coming in through other shops that were absolute garbage.

[00:05:11]That's okay. They were forcing as much product as they could onto their dealers. This is also when you had companies that were being acquired left, right, and center by them. Why? Because you expand the portfolio, you make the brand as big as you possibly can. Big number go bigger. Big number go bigger means that you can go out there and eventually go to a bank, "Hey, you know, these guys want to borrow some money.

[00:05:34]They want They They They need more growth." Look Look at this. The last couple of years have been growing constantly even though a lot of those numbers are you know, not not fake, but they're kind of fudged and presented a particular way and they do certain things to make the numbers go up. So, the banks go, "Great. Here you go. Here's a bunch of money loaned to you." Parent company who's above them, in this case Serve Co Pacific goes, "Uh, you know what? All this money that we've put into you, we're going to need, you know, you uh you you need to pay us back." So, it kind of goes through the company and then up through to the one above them.

[00:06:08]That's what happens. That's what happened with Toys R Us. That's what happens with a bunch of large retailers in the US. So, it was a What was the one that just went down? It was um around everywhere. Uh, >> [sighs] >> I'm not in America, so I don't remember.

[00:06:22]I I was reading about it in the business papers a little while ago. Um, Jenny So, I don't know. So, it's like a crafting store or something and they went under and that was literally they were bought, they were profitable, loaded up with debt, and then went completely over.

[00:06:39]That is what's happened.

[00:06:41]So, you know, history lesson aside, that's why we come back here. In 2009, these guys already went out and they tried to actually fight for the body shape. Why? Because when you own a body shape as distinctive as this, you can start doing more with it. You can license it out to other companies and you're suddenly not having to buy stock, you don't have to manufacture it, you can just have someone else do it.

[00:07:06]But, you can't do that if you don't actually own the body shape.

[00:07:10]So, in 2009, there was a long-standing case that was out there where they tried to basically trademark the Strat, Tele, and P Bass designs and it failed. Coming back to the '70s again, CBS never actually went through and litigated to ensure that they kept those body shapes, you know, as as their trademark.

[00:07:32]So, hence the reason why unless you had that headstock design or whatever else like that, that was the only one that was kept and yeah, yeah, we already covered that. But, the US This a different market to Germany.

[00:07:42]So, they went to Germany and they said, "Hey, this isn't just design. It's not just functional. It is a piece of art."

[00:07:51]And so, you ended up with a case here, landmark ruling for Fender protecting iconic Stratocaster design. So, they've gotten just the Strat, which is the biggest most number one design of guitar out there. Everyone knows what's there.

[00:08:09]They were They went after a company that didn't even, you know, get themselves involved in the proceedings cuz they didn't care.

[00:08:16]This is something that is, in my opinion, bad.

[00:08:21]I think this is very bad.

[00:08:24]Not only because of the fact that, well, I don't like private equity companies. I don't like what they've done to the world. It's all It also sets a terrifying precedent. We've already had companies going toe-to-toe over dumb things over the last 10 years.

[00:08:39]Uh Gibson versus Dean on body shapes they've been doing for 50 odd years.

[00:08:44]Uh Dean versus uh Dean Zelinsky over body designs and various other things. And it just keeps going on and on. And it will continue to get worse. But, these companies are now owned by private equity and they're going to continue doing this because they want to license those designs out. They want to make sure they can put it onto a shirt. And if someone has a shirt out there that like has a guitar shaped design that looks like a Strat, that's ours. You owe us money. And then they can just get it that way.

[00:09:13]Another brand that's done that over the last couple of years has been Marshall.

[00:09:17]Marshall was owned by the Marshall family. They went into partnerships with uh Zound, the Swedish headphone company.

[00:09:24]They did their separate things.

[00:09:26]Zound eventually bought Marshall, rolled them all into one company, which was Marshall Group. And after 18 months, went and sold them to a Hong Kong investment group.

[00:09:36]Why?

[00:09:38]Nobody's buying amps.

[00:09:40]They are buying the rock and roll lifestyle. They're buying the classic image of it. They want that logo. They want to sell headphones. They want to sell Bluetooth stuff. They want to like license out the classic Marshall iconography of the full stack for use on things. It's controlling IP because these days companies, the way it all is, they don't want products. Products are hard to sell. They take space. You need workers. You need all that. Why do that when you can have a brand? When you can have IP? When you can have something you just load up debt onto and then when it's all said and done, uh it doesn't matter about the company or the manufacturing that. Those are the IPs.

[00:10:21]You sell them off to someone else and then next thing you know, you're going to end up with a Fenders that are literally just made in China top to bottom and no American manufacturing because whatever. They got their money. They'll sell it off that way.

[00:10:34]It's a bit grim. But honestly, see that's kind of how the future of all this industry will be.

[00:10:40]These companies, they have control over the brands and there's more and more.

[00:10:44]So, you've got obviously Gibson and all the brands they acquire, Fender and all the brands that they own, which now includes Reverb, which is absolutely disturbing. So, they control one of the largest marketplaces as well as one of the largest brands.

[00:10:58]Marshall, of course, you know, Marshall owned by Hong Kong based investment group.

[00:11:03]Then you've got other brands as well including Harmony {slash} Heritage owned by another similar sort of group. Um your big companies as well, obviously, you know, Music Tribe still actually make products. They suck in other ways, but they actually still make products and Uli Behringer's focused on that, which is a bit of an odd thing in this day and age.

[00:11:23]Uh In music, they've bought up and consolidated everything.

[00:11:27]We're kind of approaching a point of the big crunch, you know, the opposite of the big bang, the big crunch in products and in the industry.

[00:11:36]So, yeah.

[00:11:37]That's why Fender are going after everyone and being litigious.

[00:11:42]They lost their body shape design in the US in 2009, but they've now managed to crack open something in Germany and set a precedent. And that's going to allow them to take control and pretty much sue people out of being able to do it.

[00:11:55]Instrument makers, that's only a small portion of why they're doing it.

[00:12:00]They're going to start after they send the cease and desist, they are either going to make them change their body shape or potentially offer a licensing deal. And licensing deals are not cheap.

[00:12:11]And they don't last forever, you have to keep renewing them. They might only have a licensing deal for 12, 18, 24 months.

[00:12:18]And at the end of that, they'll go, "Okay, actually, you know, the rate's going to go up." Cuz you have to pay a certain amount per unit or certain percentage.

[00:12:26]And it gets real complex. Small companies aren't going to be able to do that.

[00:12:30]It's all a bit depressing. This is where we're headed now, where big massive corporations wield so much power over small builders. We were entering a golden age of small companies being able to do amazing things to offer alternatives to the big companies. And they don't like that competition. Why?

[00:12:48]Well, because they want to squeeze every dollar out of it that they possibly can.

[00:12:52]And it sucks.

[00:12:53]What sucks even more is all the people out there who are licking boots and going, "Oh, yes, Fender, good, good. Go after them. Yeah. Yeah, you deserve every single cent. No, there's no other thing. I don't think that uh uh."

[00:13:04][ __ ] Fender doesn't care. They want your money and they'll sell you slop for it and you'll be happy with it because that's the kind of person that's out there, rather than keeping an eye on them and, as we say in Australia, keeping the bastards honest.

[00:13:19]It shouldn't just be one company that has a monopoly on a body shape that everyone's been using for 50 years.

[00:13:26]Half the reason why it's the most notable body shape out there is because everyone did it.

[00:13:33]It'll be sad if they're forcing small companies to licensing terms that'll just absolutely hammer them or make them stop entirely and having to retool and rejigger.

[00:13:43]Things were getting good. Everyone had the ability to step into the industry to make their small runs to make something that was a little bit different.

[00:13:53]That's a little bit sad, but tell you what isn't sad, liking and subscribing. I know.

[00:13:59]It's a sad little, you know, sad little plug at the end there, but I got to do it.

[00:14:03]Like, subscribe. Feel free to sign up to a membership if you want. I'll be doing some stuff with them, finally. Um yeah.

[00:14:11]How am I going to end this? Uh uh uh Mhm.

[00:14:17]Oh, I know.

[00:14:19][ __ ] private equity.