Thewilltopowerrock wrote:Yuk. Why is it that PRS are able to get away with this design without any copyright/IP etc issues?
Why wouldn't they? Plenty of companies do the strat copy thing.
As per my reply to Willow above I was asking from the legal/copyright point of view. Didn't know the design wasn't protected.
Even with that being the case though it's pretty average that a well-known company would do that with a well-known competitor's design, especially with such an iconic design.
Ibanez and every other superstrat manufacturer has one in their back catalogue somewhere (or still in production).
ESP has Strat, Tele and LP designs currently. It’s kinda endemic. However most of that will be ‘passing off’ so I’m with you on the pretty average assessment. They’re shaped like that to identify with the Fender crowd (or the newbs who don’t know what they want but are familiar with the shape).
Still, I’d probably play that PRS unlike the rest of their lineup, so perhaps they’re on to something...
StratMatt wrote:
Why wouldn't they? Plenty of companies do the strat copy thing.
As per my reply to Willow above I was asking from the legal/copyright point of view. Didn't know the design wasn't protected.
Even with that being the case though it's pretty average that a well-known company would do that with a well-known competitor's design, especially with such an iconic design.
Ibanez and every other superstrat manufacturer has one in their back catalogue somewhere (or still in production).
ESP has Strat, Tele and LP designs currently. It’s kinda endemic. However most of that will be ‘passing off’ so I’m with you on the pretty average assessment. They’re shaped like that to identify with the Fender crowd (or the newbs who don’t know what they want but are familiar with the shape).
During the japanese "lawsuit" era there were a bunch of court cases over this. The findings essentially were that Fender and Gibson had both been too slow defending their IP. By the time they were attempting to do so, the shapes of Strats, Teles, Les Pauls etc were considered "generic" - i.e. their forms were deemed to be representative of the general term "electric guitar" and could not be copyrighted.
Where both Fender and Gibson WERE both successful though, was copyrighting their headstock shapes. This is why you will see many companies make LP/Strat/Tele copies etc, but they will all use a different headstock design.......or suffer the might of Gibson/Fender's lawyers.
"Volume is tone" - EVH
Electrics: ESP/Fender/Gibson/.strandberg*/Godin/Washburn/Music Man/Knaggs/Squier/Vintage
Acoustic: Cole Clark/Godin/Takamine/Taylor
Amps: BOSS Katana Head / Friedman Smallbox
Thanks Matt. I am obviously aware of the myriad ripoff shapes across a range of manufacturers and have heard of 'lawsuit era' guitars but never bothered to look into the actual reasons or current status. PRS doing what they have prompted me to ask
With the implied value judgement of language like "rip off" it is important to remember that what drove the "lawsuit era" guitars was not a group of fiendish foreign types looking to steal from the noble American brands, but desperate guitarists in the US trying to buy Strats and Les Pauls that were well made and not really expensive.
Gibson and Fender were owned by corporations that were profit taking from the brands, cutting manufacturing costs, avoiding maintenance and generally producing average product at best. American guitar importers were aware of the issues and the demands from the market and answered those concerns using Japanese manufacturers.
The shapes sold were ordered by Americans from Japanese manufacturers because you couldn't buy a fifties style Strat from Fender or Les Paul from Gibson, but that was the style of instrument desired by the market. The quality of the manufacturing in Japan had reached a point in the late seventies that staff from Yamaha Japan were brought in when the Fender brand was rebuilt in the eighties to help revitalise American manufacturing of the product, not to mention the Japanese manufactured Fenders during this point in time to allow the rebuild to occur.
There are people who collect instruments from certain Japanese factories because of the quality of the wood and craftsmanship building those guitars.
Rip-off? This implies the brands were innocent victims in the degrading of their own product, in fact the copies acted as a place holder for the brands in the guitar market and even gave Fender the opportunity to play the same game with their Squier brand. It is good to realise that the money made by the Squier brand has built the Fender Custom shop, is it self sustaining? Of course, would it have happened if Fender hadn't the initial cash? Of course not.
Furthermore, if you dislike PRS building Strat style instruments, please feel free to extend your derision to Suhr, Charvel, Nash and all the other brands that have done so, and don't forget to pile on criticism of Fender's set neck instruments too.
Personally I think anything PRS does is well engineered and manufactured, irrespective of how anyone "feels" about the brand.
Having played a number of Ibanez "law suit" LPs over the years, the quality has always been good, but not what I would consider great. Some people selling them on Ebay, or where ever, would like to think they were made in some mythical period where the Japanese builders were knocking out PRS Private Stock levels of quality to show Gibson and Fender how to really make guitars. The truth is far from this, so I can only assume consistency and price were a major factor in creating the market.
The overriding impression I've got from playing them is it must have been dark days indeed for those two American brands, if the "law suit" guitars were considered to be much better quality.
The older I get, the more disappointed in myself I become.
Danger Mouse wrote:Having played a number of Ibanez "law suit" LPs over the years, the quality has always been good, but not what I would consider great. Some people selling them on Ebay, or where ever, would like to think they were made in some mythical period where the Japanese builders were knocking out PRS Private Stock levels of quality to show Gibson and Fender how to really make guitars. The truth is far from this, so I can only assume consistency and price were a major factor in creating the market.
The overriding impression I've got from playing them is it must have been dark days indeed for those two American brands, if the "law suit" guitars were considered to be much better quality.
Maybe I didn't word my initial post correctly, the current Epiphone and Squier brand outputs are more akin to the quality of the law suit era. Well built but not exact 1950's replicas. Yes, apparently Fender and Gibson were that bad in the seventies.
The Custom Shops of Gibson and Fender were built by the money from the sales of Epiphone and Squier.
It’s a strat, absolutely, but with PRS finishing and touches. The design elements he points out (like reversing the headstock, pick guard shape) are actually pretty insightful from a product design perspective.
I think people get all up in arms because PRS are seen as a mass production brand and therefore should stick to their knitting and not steal off other brands. That kinda forgets that they were founded upon refining the Gibson DC shape and adding some Fender vibe to it.
Wouldn’t buy one myself but I can see the appeal
GrantB wrote:Tony, your taste is, as always, very refined. Or as HG would say, "bloody awful".
Danger Mouse wrote:That link matches my experience.
I just scoff at some of the marketing I've seen and the complete myth some have created around them. I wouldn't seek one out.
What "marketing"? The hype comes from owners of seventies Ibanez and the like, and mostly don't actually refer to "lawsuit" guitars. Like the people who list eighties bolt on neck Ibanez guitars styled like Les Pauls on Trademe, it's not a lawsuit guitar, it's not collectable and what they're saying is not marketing but normal second hand seller bull. It seems unlikely Ibanez et al would use the lawsuit era as marketing as the legal cases cost a lot of money and who in their right mind would beat that hornets nest.
I believe you when you say you have played a lawsuit era guitar, but I have not seen more than a handful over many years on Trademe, though I have seen many referred to as such.
Danger Mouse wrote:That link matches my experience.
I just scoff at some of the marketing I've seen and the complete myth some have created around them. I wouldn't seek one out.
What "marketing"? The hype comes from owners of seventies Ibanez and the like, and mostly don't actually refer to "lawsuit" guitars. Like the people who list eighties bolt on neck Ibanez guitars styled like Les Pauls on Trademe, it's not a lawsuit guitar, it's not collectable and what they're saying is not marketing but normal second hand seller bull. It seems unlikely Ibanez et al would use the lawsuit era as marketing as the legal cases cost a lot of money and who in their right mind would beat that hornets nest.
I believe you when you say you have played a lawsuit era guitar, but I have not seen more than a handful over many years on Trademe, though I have seen many referred to as such.
Ebay adverts from guitar dealers, mainly. Obviously they have a commercial interest in continuing to propagate the "lawsuit era" myth, but as previously mentioned some would have you believe that you'd be purchasing a guitar with top-shelf custom shop levels of build quality, when as you say, they were in the Squier and Epiphone range in reality.
The older I get, the more disappointed in myself I become.