Rules regarding selling Parts-casters!!!!!

lamf68

Can one of the mods or anyone for that matter answer this...I am in the process of assembling a couple of Telecasters/Jazzmasters from fender licensed parts, the jazzmaster body wont be fender licensed but the neck will. It has always been my understanding that if a product is licensed by Fender you can slap a Fender decal on it and sell it as such, not saying its a fender but stating it is licensed by them. I am going to be flogging one of them on when its complete but dont want to rub anyone up the wrong way by doing so and drop the site in the shit by selling something that isn't what it is...So aside from all that waffle, basically, can you put a Fender decal on an Allparts neck and sell it as such? coz im 99.9% sure you can.

cheers for any help Rich

monquixote

We've had a lot of conflicting information on this, but the current policy is:

Don't claim it's a Fender if it isn't

Don't put any photographs with a Fender logo in shot on your advert if it's a bitsa.

axisus

Surely you'd have to include a headstock shot if you have a Fender logo on? And the explain that it wasn't a Fender? I wouldn't buy a guitar without seeing the headstock.

WezV

axisus;488160" said:

Surely you'd have to include a headstock shot if you have a Fender logo on? And the explain that it wasn't a Fender? I wouldn't buy a guitar without seeing the headstock.

As a buyer you are free to ask questions and request more pics.

The seller can pm you this info to prevent it being published on the public site and potentially getting site owners in trouble.

FX_Munkee

How about photoshop "swirling" the decal in the photos?

Jalapeno

Personally speaking, if you're up front that it's a partscaster, and they are licensed parts nobody should take lumps out of you.

To be 100% safe I agree with @FX_Munkee, photoshop logos and be clear with people.

Only exception would be when replacing (say) a Fender neck on a Fender guitar with a licensed Fender neck (for whatever reason), the it's ok to call it a Fender, but you should still state that the neck is a Fender (or licensed) after market neck.  Same with replacement pickups, which people normally make a thing about anyway because of supposed Mojo.

I prefer Nash Guitars' approach - having your own distinctive logo and being proud of it.

Richardj

As I understand it it is the shape/design that is licensed as these are protected by copyright etc.  You still don't have any right to use the manufacturers logo as the item has not been made them in their factory.

Where you have a guitar made from pieces of separate original factory made guitars I think it is a little dishonest if you don't make it clear in the listing as you are still selling / potentially buying a partscaster.  The factories record the specs of the guitars and it is easy to find out if a particular spec neck belongs with a particular body.

martinw

monquixote said:

We've had a lot of conflicting information on this, but the current policy is:

Don't claim it's a Fender if it isn't

Don't put any photographs with a Fender logo in shot on your advert if it's a bitsa.

Does the same apply to amps?

jd0272

@Iamf68 simply don't apply the waterslide, supply it for the buyer to decide. They go on great over lacquer anyway.

digitalscream

martinw said:

monquixote said:

We've had a lot of conflicting information on this, but the current policy is:

Don't claim it's a Fender if it isn't

Don't put any photographs with a Fender logo in shot on your advert if it's a bitsa.

Does the same apply to amps?

Yup. The law isn't specific to guitars.

We do this because we don't want to end up shutting up shop because a manufacturer decides to chuck a sueball our way for facilitating the sale of counterfeit guitars the way they have with eBay et al - for a start, I (as the service provider) don't have a legal fund I can dip into.

fretmeister

Applies to everything.

http://news.sky.com/story/1412730/rihanna-wins-topshop-t-shirt-photo-battle

martinw

digitalscream said:

martinw said:

monquixote said:

We've had a lot of conflicting information on this, but the current policy is:

Don't claim it's a Fender if it isn't

Don't put any photographs with a Fender logo in shot on your advert if it's a bitsa.

Does the same apply to amps?

Yup. The law isn't specific to guitars.

I ask because I sometimes see amp clones (Ceriatones et al) with the 'wrong' badge on for sale here. In fact there's one in the classifieds now.

It's a personal bugbear of mine. All the 'straight' clones I've built have had my own badge on, but one or two have been modified post-sale, not by the first owner I should add, which irritates a tad.

TTony

martinw said:

digitalscream said:

martinw said:

monquixote said:

We've had a lot of conflicting information on this, but the current policy is:

Don't claim it's a Fender if it isn't

Don't put any photographs with a Fender logo in shot on your advert if it's a bitsa.

Does the same apply to amps?

Yup. The law isn't specific to guitars.

I ask because I sometimes see amp clones (Ceriatones et al) with the 'wrong' badge on for sale here. In fact there's one in the classifieds now.

It's a personal bugbear of mine. All the 'straight' clones I've built have had my own badge on, but one or two have been modified post-sale, not by the first owner I should add, which irritates a tad.

Flag them and we can take a look - we don't (can't) look at everything that's posted.

digitalscream

martinw said:

I ask because I sometimes see amp clones (Ceriatones et al) with the 'wrong' badge on for sale here. In fact there's one in the classifieds now.

It's a personal bugbear of mine. All the 'straight' clones I've built have had my own badge on, but one or two have been modified post-sale, not by the first owner I should add, which irritates a tad.

Fair point - if you happen to spot one, please flag it so that we can remove it.

I know it seems a little draconian - and perhaps there's a grey area in the law around this - but we're erring on the side of safety. I love this site, but there's no way I'm going up against Fender/Gibson/Marshall/etc to keep it going

digitalscream

Another very key point which has come up - if somebody puts a fake up for sale including the badge, we remove it and then they re-upload without the badge...that's also destined for the bin, because we already know that it's a fake and so we're likely to be seen as knowingly assisting the sale.

For anyone considering it...if you try to sell a fake on here, you're potentially putting the whole site at risk. Slightly alarmist, but it only takes one instance and a manufacturer wanting to make an example of us, and we're boned.

Jalapeno

Doubly so for a fake Rickenbacker ! Those guys a religiously litigious.

fretmeister

Really - there is no grey area in the law for this.

Cyberlawyer did an excellent and comprehensive review (it is his area of practice) and confirmed it. Wrong logo = illegal. Disclaimer = still illegal.

It doesn't matter whether people agree with the law or not, or want to go off on endless arguments about the morality / philosophy of it, the law applies. End of.

digitalscream

fretmeister said:

Really - there is no grey area in the law for this.

Cyberlawyer did an excellent and comprehensive review (it is his area of practice) and confirmed it. Wrong logo = illegal. Disclaimer = still illegal.

It doesn't matter whether people agree with the law or not, or want to go off on endless arguments about the morality / philosophy of it, the law applies. End of.

I must've misread (IANAL) - it seemed like there were a couple of grey areas. However, I'll obviously defer to your expertise - and we're being over-cautious anyway, because it's vastly preferable to the alternative.

Thank you, sir

imalone

fretmeister said:
Disclaimer = still illegal.

I'm always amused by the Youtube descriptions with "no copyright infringement intended".

chillidoggy

fretmeister said:

Applies to everything.

http://news.sky.com/story/1412730/rihanna-wins-topshop-t-shirt-photo-battle

Anyone else as shallow as me click on the link in the hope of seeing Rhianna in a T-shirt?

fretmeister

imalone said:

fretmeister said:
Disclaimer = still illegal.

I'm always amused by the Youtube descriptions with "no copyright infringement intended".

Now this is different, mostly because of the USA.

The USA has quite open "fair use" allowances, and most countries also have quite wide ranging (but different) allowances for reporting and parody.

Think of it this way - you are writing an article about a book you read. You can quote directly from the book without difficulty if the amount is modest... but if you quote ALL the book...

The global reach of the web makes it damn difficult to decide what breaches what and where!