[normaler]

I used to work for a Thomann competitor "Musicstore" in ~2005.

The server was some tower server in a back office with a note reminding everyone not to turn it off.

With Thoman being hugged to death right now I would like to think of there being a similar situation (its probably fine, but it made me feel nostalgic).

[matchagaucho]

Similar work experience, I was with a CBS-owned music company that had a CNC machine with some old Fender Telecaster and Stratocaster body templates.

The hardware manager was cool and would let employees turn slabs of wood into Tele- and Strat-style bodies after hours.

When the Fender/German court ruling came down, my first thought was: Fender has had roughly 70 years with the Stratocaster design, and the broader industry has been making S-style guitars for decades.

Surely at some point a body shape becomes generic, right?

[mc32]

Things become generic if you stop defending them/enforcing your IP.

I think the iPhone at one time defended the design of its “squircle” corners. Eventually settling out of court.

[anamexis]

I think you're thinking of trademark, but this isn't a trademark claim, it's a copyright infringement claim. The legal question is whether the guitar shape can be copyrighted.

[dofm]

That is the legal question FMIC think they have settled with this legal win, yes.

Two legal questions they will now be asked, by Thomann or LsL, are:

- if such a copyright could exist, what shape precisely are Fender arguing it would cover?

- if such a copyright could exist, would Fender (the company) have title to it?

Answering these questions could get them into some difficulty, legally. Neither are obvious and the second one is really problematic.

[matchagaucho]

It would be odd to try this as copyrightable in the U.S, where there’s a pretty clear distinction between art added to a guitar, like PRS bird inlays, and the core body shape.

[dofm]

I think so. But also they lost even their case to make a trademark of it:

https://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/fender-loses-guitar-...

https://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=91161403&pty=OPP&eno...

You would think this would have been quite an easy win, because regardless of who makes guitars with S-type bodies, the outline of the Stratocaster or Telecaster is surely sufficiently identifiable with Fender as to be something they could at least claim should be their trademark in certain categories (on merchandise etc.)

Fender failed to prove that if people saw a line art outline of the Stratocaster, they would associate it first with "Fender". And indeed an illustrated dictionary at the time used such an outline to just generically illustrate "Electric guitar", apparently.

And in that finding:

  Finally, there is no evidence of record that from the
  first production of the guitars incorporating these shapes
  in the early 1950s until 2003, that applicant or its
  predecessors in interest ever treated the outlines of the
  body shapes as trademarks. In fact, we may infer from the
  evidence of record that applicant and its predecessors
  themselves did not view them as trademarks. They never
  policed the body shape, only the word marks and headstock
  profiles. In addition, they never claimed trademark rights
  in the body outlines publicly through, for example, the
  catalogues, until 2004. Rather, they only claimed the word
  marks and the headstock profiles. In the meantime, many
  other guitar manufacturers sold guitars with the identical
  body shapes for at least 30 years, either as complete
  guitars or in the form of kits.

This was in 2009, when it was clear that Fender had never "policed" the body shape until that point.

And this — from a deposition from Warmoth as far as I can determine (they made spare parts) which makes it clear that Fender never entered into an agreement with Warmouth about the body shape, only the neck (because of the headstock shape which they believed was trademarked):

  Q. And you have a licensing agreement to
  manufacture what from Fender?
  A. Replacement necks utilizing the Fender
  trademark head shape.
  Q. In those discussions utilizing that license,
  was there any conversation or written
  documentation with reference to body shapes?
  A. No.
  Q. Would your company be harmed if you’re no
  longer able to make body shapes depicted in [126,
  928 and 127]?
  A. It would have a significant impact on our
  sales numbers and value [sic] of employees.
  Q. Why are you an opposer in this proceeding?
  A. I’ve been making these body shapes for 30
  years, unopposed, untrademarked, and have built a
  business on making these parts. There’s a lot of
  demand for it. While I make other body shapes,
  the demand for them is pretty insignificant when
  compared to these three shapes.

So this is Warmoth, in 2009, saying that Fender never asked them to license the body shape as far back as 1979 (which is also, if I remember reading correctly, when Schecter and G&L started making S-type guitars)

So even if they do have ownership of some kind of copyright, they've never asserted it before and three decades of their own conduct kind of militates against them being able to enforce it.

And they aren't the only ones, the finding goes on because Fender took action against multiple companies (this is around page 30–40 or so).

[PaulHoule]

It seems like something you could get a design patent for but these are only good for 15 years.

[omnimus]

Yeah sure biggest european music ecommerce store runs on tower server in a back office.

[Brian_K_White]

Happens all the time.