Gibson hits Trump Guitars with cease and desist for resemblance to Les Paul body design
Gibson hits Trump Guitars with cease and desist for resemblance to Les Paul body design
Gibson has hit Trump Guitars and 16 Creative with a cease and desist due to the new guitar line's resemblance to Gibson's Les Paul design.
As much as I dislike Orange Man, and would like to praise Gibson here, this probably doesn't have much, if anything, to do with politics.. Gibson has spent the last decade suing fucking everybody over IP infringement. They're particularly fond of going after small independent luthiers who don't have the means to fight a giant corporation in court.
It's part of Gibson's multi-decade plan to cary out any wacky dumbass scheme they can think of to boost profits, just so long as it doesn't involve them making high quality instruments again.
I don't know what Gibson is so upset about, those guitars are representative of what Gibson is all about. Overpriced garbage that's likely to break.
They're particularly fond of going after small independent luthiers who don't have the means to fight a giant corporation in court.
You have to vigorously defend trademarks or you lose them.
https://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/fender-loses-guitar-copyright-case-201886
Fuck, he even infests guitars
And here I thought my one little corner of the internet was safe from bullshit, and Hitler has to go make a guitar. Go figure
"Can't stop the king." -Potato Supreme
Someone is making Trump guitars now
Opportunistic businessmen capitalizing on the stupidity of his supporters. It's almost commendable as a business venture.
At this rate we're going to have an entire old school catalog of Trump shit by the end of the first year. Fucking press conferences to hock his grifty shit.
Get the exclusive Trump Cyber truck by Tesla.
Wipe like a President with Trump toilet paper.
So Gibson is the Nintendo of instruments?
That have sense with the fact what all Japanese have a hyperfixation with Les Pauls.
Related anecdote, my sister's fiance (at the time) gave me a guitar he supposedly found by a dumpster or in a storage unit. It looked like a Les Paul, but wasn't, I forget the name on the top. I sent it to have it looked over and a couple little things repaired.
The repair guy ended up calling me and making sure I was good with XYZ, and I asked if he could tell me anything about it. Apparently, I had a Japanese counterfeit Les Paul. I guess back in the 70s/80s/90s, Japanese companies would make clones of Les Paul's and sell them for a reduced price, but their quality was kinda comparable to the real deal.
Les Paul would sue and/or send a cease and desist, and the company would shut down and pop up a few months later under a different name, rinse and repeat.
I ended up selling the guitar back in high school, kinda wish I hadn't, but actually ended up buying another a few years later, different color but a Japanese Les Paul.
I really want to know why jp have a fixation with lespauls. The 90% of animes that had a character playing music use one.
I'm not trying to defend Trump in any way, but seeing the crap he's trying to sell to dumb people, the last thing I think is "that sure looks like a prestige Les Paul"
I think the case has a pretty solid backing though. Gibson has made a more or less identical guitar for 100 years, same with Les Paul, Statocasters, and pretty much all guitar manufacturers. You could argue it's predatory from the largest guitar manufacturer, but they will probably win.
Do they have a legal leg to stand on? Plenty of brands sell guitars similar or identical to Les Pauls, Strats, SGs...
There is some precedence with design similarities.
Gibson went after Ibanez in the late 70's for the headstock.
Oh look, it's two horrible people fighting eachother. Nobody wins, but it's still good entertainment.