I got banned from the UK Guitar Amp Gear Exchange group on facebook *chibsons again*

Hertz32

Chap tried to sell a chibson on the group, i pointed out that it was against the rules of the group and asked him to remove that ad. 

He started to delete the comments of people that didn't agree with him, and I was banned from the group. 

Childish prick xD 

Hertz32

I dont give a shit about fakery on here. You know what you are buying into, and if you don't I am confident the community will look out for you. It's when someone maybe purchasing it with the intention of flipping it as a real one I take issue with, and the fact that the mods on that group cant keep to their own bloody rules!

thecolourbox

You probably got banned because you didn't click "like" on every photo added regardless if your interest in it, and your comment was not "Swap for a Marshall MG100FX? Its better than most amps cos it has fx built in instead"

lustycourtier

I had a whole group (it seemed!) turn on me for dissing Chibsons, to the point of them stealing my pix and trying to bully me! Cracking day that was....

guitarfishbay

Fakes are rife on Facebook.

Seems every other guitar has a disclaimer 'note not real Fender/Gibson but just as good' (and also just as sporting a fake logo on the headstock).

Lixarto

Hertz32 said:

I dont give a shit about fakery on here.

It is against the rules here too; not that you'd know :-S

fretmeister

Lixarto said:

Hertz32 said:

I dont give a shit about fakery on here.

It is against the rules here too; not that you'd know :-S

And it's illegal.

MattFGBI

Trading in fake goods is illegal, regardless of if you let people know first or not.  

randomhandclaps

MattFGBI said:

Trading in fake goods is illegal, regardless of if you let people know first or not.  

How does Simon Cowell get away with it then?

Panama_Jack666

randomhandclaps said:

MattFGBI said:

Trading in fake goods is illegal, regardless of if you let people know first or not.  

How does Simon Cowell get away with it then?

Or plastic surgeons? They're forever selling fake tits!

digitalscream

Hertz32 said:

I dont give a shit about fakery on here. You know what you are buying into, and if you don't I am confident the community will look out for you. It's when someone maybe purchasing it with the intention of flipping it as a real one I take issue with, and the fact that the mods on that group cant keep to their own bloody rules!

We don't allow it here either, even if it's a high-end hand-made-by-unicorns-in-the-light-of-a-rainbow guitar; if it has a logo from another company on it or it's pretending to be something it's not, it gets binned.

We don't ban people for it, though. The only time we'd do that is if somebody was repeatedly trying to sell counterfeit gear after being warned to knock it off.

hubobulous

digitalscream said:

We don't ban people for it, though. The only time we'd do that is if somebody was repeatedly trying to sell counterfeit gear after being warned to knock it off.

Isn't that exactly what you're trying to avoid ;-)

digitalscream

hubobulous said:

Isn't that exactly what you're trying to avoid ;-)

That was kind of a deliberate pun. Well, a fortunate accident

Hertz32

Ah fair enough, I decided to keep out of the thread about gassage's strat and didn't read the conclusion to it as I was GASing for it hard and i need to restrict my exposure to Gassages gear else I explode from jealousy

randomhandclaps

Hertz32 said:

Ah fair enough, I decided to keep out of the thread about gassage's strat and didn't read the conclusion to it as I was GASing for it hard and i need to restrict my exposure to Gassages gear else I explode from jealousy

You also clearly didn't read enough to realise it only had six strings!   :P

joeyowen

There was a post by a legal dude in the guitar forum.  It was a thread about us being a fickle bunch.

It explained the laws behind is all really well

Cyberlawyer said:

Hi Guys,

Well I have watched this thread unfold and I finally thought it was my turn to throw my two cents in. When I joined the forum I said I wasn’t going to contribute to legal topics, but given this is one of my fields of legal practice and I can clearly discuss the law in an abstract sense without providing direct legal advice I’ll make an exception. This is going to be a bit of an essay, so please feel to either (1) completely dismiss this lengthy explanation as boring; (2) ban me from the forum for being an ass; or (3) grab a coffee and sit down as this is going to be a bit of a marathon. P.S. please excuse any typo’s as I’m on a train on my tablet.

Please note that this post is not intended to be and should not be construed as legal advice, it is merely an academic contribution to an interesting abstract discussion. Should you require legal advice on issues identified in this post please consult a solicitor.

By way of credentials I originally qualified as a barrister, but recently converted to be a solicitor, I am also a licensed New York attorney (not relevant to this analysis, but helpful when looking at all of the issues associated with ‘lawsuit’ copies as these are all US cases) and hold a Masters Degree in Intellectual property law. In terms of scope I am only going to discuss issues associated with trade mark law and the common law of ‘passing off’, I will also briefly discuss the criminal law on the sale of ‘fakes’ as it pertains to trade marks. I will not discuss either registered or unregistered design rights (both civilly and criminally) as although academically interesting and generally relevant to guitars, the time limits associated with these protections mean that they are inapplicable to the ‘classic’ guitar designs.

Trade Mark

The first point to note is that the Fender logo is a registered trade mark owned by the Fender Musical Instrument Corporation (no surprise there). This trade mark registration gives the holder exclusive rights to use the mark or licence it for use by another party (Section 9 of the Trade Mark Act 1994). Infringement of a trade mark  may be achieved by affixing the mark (or, subject to certain requirements, a similar mark) to goods (i.e. putting it on a guitar), but it also requires that the mark is used in the course of trade (so applying a ‘F’ decal to your home brew partscaster is not in its self an infringement until you sell it, but the person who sold you the decal was infringing). It is not infringing to use a trade mark to identify the goods of the trademark holder (so you can use the Fender trademark to describe your genuine Fender guitar in the advert for sale).

For the purposes of trade mark infringement you can infringe by any of (1) fixing the mark to goods or packaging; (2) selling goods under the trade mark; (3) using the mark in offering the goods for sale; or (4) using the trade mark in business papers or advertising (Section 10 of the Trade Mark Act 1994). As such if you use a genuine neck as part of a guitar build you are not infringing any trade marks simply by leaving the logo there as you did not fix the logo to the product, the trade mark holder did that legitimately. However if you use the trade mark in the course of selling the goods this is an infringement, thus you can’t use the trade mark in the advertisement for sale. This is one legitimate reason why you may see pictures of guitars on e-bay with the logo obscured as it may be legitimate to sell the goods with the logo attached (assuming it was applied by the trademark holder) but it would be an infringement to include it in a photo in the advertisement for the sale (admittedly mostly commonly they are outright fakes, and the obscured logo is so there in no photographic evidence of the fakery).

joeyowen

Cyberlawyer said:

Passing Off

The other matter to consider is the common law of ‘passing off’. Passing off is a civil claim that exists under the common law (no statutes to refer to, but the leading case is Reckitt & Colman Ltd v Borden Inc [1990] 1 All E.R. 873 – the ‘Jif lemon case’). Passing off protects the ‘good will’ or reputation that a particular seller may have built up in the market (this is best thought of as the consumers attraction to a particular brand). To succeed in a passing off action the claimant needs that; (1) it has good will in the market place; (2) there is a misrepresentation on the part of the defendant that would cause ordinary members of the public to believe that the goods or services are in fact those of the claimant; and (3) the misrepresentation damages the goodwill of the claimant.

In this case (1) and (3) are largely questions of fact and in any litigation involving passing off the claimant will often have produced numerous market surveys to demonstrate how its brand has ‘good will’ in the market place and how the defendant’s misrepresentation has damaged its brand image (if you have ever taken part in one of those surveys outside the supermarket or on your door step where they ask if you recognise X product just from its slogan or from the packaging with the name blanked out, you may have inadvertently contributed evidence in a passing off case). However it may be assumed that in the case of the classic guitar designs they won’t have too much trouble demonstrating that they have both ‘good will’ and that a misrepresentation will damage that ‘good will’.

If we therefore turn to the second requirement, that ‘there is a misrepresentation on the part of the defendant that would cause ordinary members of the public to believe that the goods or services are in fact those of the claimant’ which is the crux of the issue here. The nature of this test really requires that the ‘look and feel’ and packaging and presentation of the product would lead an ordinary member of the public to assume that the guitar originated from the claimant rather than from its actual origin. Again this is a factual test that in any passing off claim is usually supported by market research. However in the case of actual reproductions it is almost inevitable that this test will be satisfied. As previously pointed out the test is on objective one that is based on the reaction of ordinary people so to be effective any disclaimer would need to be obvious to any observer (i.e. small print in the contract of sale or a notice discreetly located on the product such as under the scratch plate or in the neck pocket is no good, but spraying ‘fake’ across the front in red paint would probably do it).

Criminal Law

Both passing off or trade mark infringement although themselves civil actions can be relevant in criminal counterfeiting cases. Such cases are pursued under the Fraud Act of 2006. Generally speaking fraud requires that a person either; (1) dishonestly make a representation that he knows it is untrue or misleading or knows it might be untrue or misleading for the purposes of gain or (2) dishonestly fails to disclose information that he is legally obliged to disclose for the purposes of gain. Thus claiming you partscaster is a genuine 'F' is actually a criminal offence (again no surprise there), but so is claiming that your guitar is genuine if you have some doubts about this fact, even if you bought it as genuine. In these cases a disclaimer communicated to the recipient that the guitar is a fake or suspected fake prior to a sale is effective as it negates any alleged misrepresentation.

What may come as a surprise to some is that possessing, supplying or making items for the use in fraud is also a criminal offence in its own right. In this instance proving that your ‘fake’ guitar is owned for the purposes of fraud is probably impossible until you actually sell it (in which case you have committed actual fraud), and as this provision is really aimed at people who have credit card cloning machines in their house it is probably not that relevant. It might be an issue if you have a big box of unused 'F' decals under our bed, but even then it is easy to claim a legitimate use (restoring legitimate guitars with damaged logos) that would be virtually impossible to disprove. Making or supplying articles for use in fraud is potentially more relevant as it is possible that you could sell your fake guitar on (disclosing that it is a fake), but your buyer then resells it as genuine, at which point you have supplied goods for the use in a fraud, however the law in this area requires intention that it was supplied for the use in fraud, or knowledge that it was made for the use in fraud which again are difficult to show

The fact that the crown prosecution service must be satisfied that they have a reasonable change of a successful prosecution and that prosecution is in the public interest before pursuing a case means that most prosecution is more likely to be limited to actual cases of fraud or larger scale counterfeiting operations that are churning out fakes, rather than small independent builders who are applying ‘F’ logos at a customers request with full disclosure.

Skipped

I am slightly shocked that LPF have changed their policy and now have a section to discuss non Gibson guitars including Replicas/Fakes.


:-O

therose789

Theres a couple of local pages to me that keep selling knock off stuff (amongst the Spikey Guitars, marshall mg,line6 amps and Joyo Pedals). Just had a look at that page and it's exactly the same apart from its nation wide! 

Much prefer to use here for buying and selling! 

axisus

Panama_Jack666 said:

randomhandclaps said:

MattFGBI said:

Trading in fake goods is illegal, regardless of if you let people know first or not.  

How does Simon Cowell get away with it then?

Or plastic surgeons? They're forever selling fake tits!

My job is finding fake tits. I'm not very good at it though, it takes a good 30 minutes of fondling before I can make my mind up.

hubobulous

axisus said:

My job is finding fake tits. I'm not very good at it though, it takes a good 30 minutes of fondling before I can make my mind up.

Surely you remember if you had the op or not, and where they would have implanted them on you?