The Fender Debacle

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:01]What's up, dudes? So, I wasn't planning on making another Fender video. I mean, I'm sure you've seen a ton of them this week. Everybody's coming out with a video.

[00:00:10]Uh it's a bit of a bandwagon, if you will, because uh you know, it's it's a big story and it um it affects, you know, the the largest maker and a whole bunch of smaller makers. And so, you know, the it it's definitely sort of the the hot topic right now.

[00:00:30]But, it's been done. Everybody's got a video out, and so I wasn't going to make one.

[00:00:35]Until I read the cease-and-desist letter.

[00:00:40]And then I was like, "Oh, you cannot even be serious." And then I felt that, you know what?

[00:00:45]Had a little showing of solidarity with other um YouTubers that, you know, feel the same way and that that this is way way over the top for a default judgment. I cannot stress that enough. This case was not decided on the merits.

[00:01:08]It was decided by a very one-sided decision based on failure to defend.

[00:01:14]You never heard opposing arguments, cuz they were never presented.

[00:01:19]And default judgments are, you know, not given that not given that much weight on appeal. But, no one's going to appeal it because that company never never fought it, and they have no interest in fighting it.

[00:01:35]So, um what you're left is this bombshell decision in the EU. Doesn't affect the US, doesn't affect Asia.

[00:01:45]Yet.

[00:01:48]But, basically you have this bombshell, you know, um uh decision that essentially grants Fender 70 years after its creation exclusivity for the Fender Stratocaster body. Now, they've had the headstock.

[00:02:10]That's a distinctive feature that's non-functional.

[00:02:14]But the body, every decision that they made, you could argue, is that a functional decision or is that a purely aesthetic uh decision?

[00:02:26]And uh this just came up in the Dean lawsuit.

[00:02:30]In the Dean lawsuit, they lost on their copyright because the court that granted this is in the US and not in the EU.

[00:02:37]But the court said, "Mm, a lot of those um uh artistic, you know, qualities that you're putting on the Dean guitar, if taken away, it still leaves a guitar, a so-called useful article."

[00:02:55]And then you have to examine like, was the decision made for purely uh artistic and aesthetic reasons or for functionality?

[00:03:09]And the more functional something is, the less creative and artistic it is.

[00:03:17]Right? If If you wanted to be really artistic, why don't you put the volume knob on the headstock?

[00:03:23]No one's doing that.

[00:03:26]Because it's functional. The volume knob is where it is so that it's easily accessed while someone's playing guitar.

[00:03:33]But you put the Why don't you put the pickup selector on the back of the guitar?

[00:03:37]If it's purely aesthetic, if it's purely artistic, because it's not.

[00:03:43]It's functional in some way.

[00:03:46]The contours, are those functional or are they purely aesthetic?

[00:03:52]They're functional. They're an ergonomic cutaway to facilitate an easier handling of the instrument.

[00:04:01]There's so many things that the bridge placement, the pickup placement.

[00:04:07]You know, there's so many things about the guitar that they're trying to claim like that this is a purely artistic vision.

[00:04:15]It's not.

[00:04:17]It's function. And if something is functional, you need to get a patent because patents don't last very long.

[00:04:24]You can't say all these things, you know, all these years later, I have a copyright to it and now uh we're coming after anyone who copied it. You know, there is a duty in the law to mitigate your damages. You can't sit around for 70 years waiting till this whole cottage industry grows around the body shape and then say, "Okay, now we're coming. We want your money."

[00:04:49]That That First of all, it'd already been litigated in the US and Fender lost.

[00:04:55]It wasn't litigated in the EU. I can't stress that enough.

[00:05:00]It was just a default decision and now they're acting like it was decided on the merits and that they have, you know, a a very strong case to go after in anyone who's even remotely looking like a you know, like a Strat uh guitar.

[00:05:19]And I would just say that um even if you have some basis for it, all it is is you're asking a court to give you a monopoly cuz you don't want to compete.

[00:05:35]Right? You want to be a competitor, but you want monopolistic competition.

[00:05:40]You want to have some feature, which is pretty much where every brand wants to be, right? You have intellectual property that grants you exclusivity to certain things. A name, you know, a look.

[00:05:57]Sure. I get that.

[00:06:00]But it has already been held that only the headstock is a non-functional sort of unique item.

[00:06:07]That the body, it's hard to argue that a lot of those things aren't functional.

[00:06:12]And yet, here we are arguing about you know, what seemed to have been well-settled law. And it's it and it is in the United States and in Asia, but not in the EU.

[00:06:28]And it's just such a ridiculous outcome.

[00:06:31]Now, I figured that they would win this.

[00:06:33]They'd They'd You know, you'd sort of get it cuz this this came out weeks ago.

[00:06:39]Now, you see you won a something on paper, right?

[00:06:43]Uh you can hang it and frame it hang it on the wall. We won.

[00:06:48]But no, they're going out and they're actively pursuing.

[00:06:51]They're like IP vultures in the tech uh market.

[00:06:55]It is unbelievable that they would think that they have, you know, uh a mandate to go after all these companies based on that un- contested decision.

[00:07:08]Never heard an argument against it, only the arguments for it.

[00:07:14]And you're Again, they're acting like this was a knock-down, drag-out fight and they emerged the victor.

[00:07:20]No. There was no fight and you were just basically handed a victory for default.

[00:07:28]And it is just shocking to me the contents of that letter, where it's like, "Now you will You owe us money."

[00:07:36]In fact, they wanted them to send them thousands of euros just for writing them the letter.

[00:07:42]Just absolutely ridiculous. And what My whole take from this is Um Kind of have to stand with Everyone who's against Fender on this one. There's really no defending Fender on this at this point.

[00:08:00]They have a unique brand name. It's called Fender.

[00:08:03]No one's contesting that.

[00:08:05]They have a unique headstock shape.

[00:08:08]The Stratocaster headstock shape has been deemed unique.

[00:08:11]And trademarkable. And That's not going in nothing like that.

[00:08:17]But the body has been determined to be generic for years.

[00:08:22]Because you sat on your rights. And if you sit on your rights for so long, you lose them. You snooze, you lose. It's one of the oldest You know, that's why we have a statute of limitations for a lot of things. And those that don't, we have a concept called latches. That means if you sit around for too long, and you have a duty to mitigate damages. So, you Are you waiting for a whole industry to crop up?

[00:08:43]And now you're going to come out? Oh, now there's money out there. Now we can go disgorge profits as a part of the Copyright You know, law.

[00:08:52]It would give them an unfair advantage.

[00:08:54]It's you know, it's it's it's it's ridiculous.

[00:08:57]And so, um I Won't be featuring Fender on my channel.

[00:09:04]Uh for the foreseeable future.

[00:09:07]I just got the the next four guitars for Guitar of the Week, which returns on June 8th.

[00:09:13]The One of the guitars in that round that's like literally sitting 20 ft away from me And four boxes.

[00:09:25]One of those guitars is a Fender guitar.

[00:09:27]I don't think I'm going to show it.

[00:09:29]I don't think I want to promote the brand any longer.

[00:09:33]I can't Promote that brand. They've become so toxic. Who would promote that brand? All you're going to do is invite, you know, sneers and jeers from the from the comment section.

[00:09:46]So, it's like first of all, you put people like me, who I I love Fender.

[00:09:51]I've been using Fender since 1981.

[00:09:55]Got my first Fender Strat.

[00:09:58]And I've always owned Fender. Had always had a Fender guitar. Always I don't think there was a period in my life where I didn't own a Fender guitar. Or a very short period at the very least.

[00:10:08]Always played Fender amps.

[00:10:10]Had Fender amp after Fender amp. Had a Fender Twin.

[00:10:14]I had a Fender uh Princeton.

[00:10:16]You know, I had a bunch of Fender amps.

[00:10:20]Kind of toxic right now.

[00:10:22]I don't think I would promote that brand in any way at this point.

[00:10:26]So, uh be careful what you wish for, Fender.

[00:10:30]Cuz you got the attention of everybody, but it might not be the um the attention you you want.

[00:10:38]So, um I I think the uh this the decision was ridiculous.

[00:10:43]It wasn't based on the merits. I think their aggressive cease and desist is um quite frankly, again, sort of much like the decision, without merit.

[00:10:56]And this is just a way to scare small companies that do not have the funds to fight back against a big Goliath like um like Fender is to try to put them out of business to eliminate competition.

[00:11:12]What are you scared of, Fender?

[00:11:14]Can't compete any longer? I thought you were Fender.

[00:11:17]Thought you made the best Stratocaster.

[00:11:19]Now, they're not even calling them Stratocasters. They're calling them S-style.

[00:11:24]Like your your IP is intact. No one's using the headstock. No one's calling their stuff Fender. No one's calling them Stratocasters. No one's calling them strats.

[00:11:35]But that's not enough.

[00:11:37]You still You want Now you want to eliminate that anything even looks similar to it.

[00:11:41]And you might have had a case in 1970 or even maybe 1980.

[00:11:48]But in 2026?

[00:11:51]In 2025?

[00:11:53]All these years later? Say, "Oh, by the way, yeah, we own that."

[00:11:58]Thanks Thanks for building up a an industry for us. Now, we we're we're going to you know, we got to you know, rein that all in. It's like, no.

[00:12:09]So, um we'll see what happens. My advice to Fender would be to damage control at this point.

[00:12:19]And um to, you know, uh reconsider the aggressive stance you've taken against these small makers.

[00:12:31]And um you know, uh just know that well, the the world is big. The guitar community isn't that big.

[00:12:45]And you it is there's enough people out there, I think, at this point that are saying, "Mm, you know what? I I Fender is it's a little toxic right now.

[00:12:55]I I don't know if I really want to Are you going to come after things like that? Is that close enough to a strat?

[00:13:01]Oh, look, they put the pickups in the same place Fender put their pickups.

[00:13:05]Look, [snorts] they put their knobs in the same place Fender put their knobs.

[00:13:09]Look, they put their switch in the same place Fender put their switch.

[00:13:14]I mean, you can't even be serious.

[00:13:16]Function, function, function, not purely artistic.

[00:13:21]And uh it is just ridiculous that they think they have this this mandate to go out and just uh go after these these small makers.

[00:13:34]I mean, how how good is your product if you're that worried? All right, guys.

[00:13:39]There you have it. My thoughts on the Fender debacle.

[00:13:43]And I'll see you back here on June 8th for the start of the mid-season for Guitar of the Week. Thanks for hanging out.

[00:13:52]Rock on.