FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

[Funkfingers]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

Intellectual property rights 'R some people's livelihood.

 

[frankfalbo]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

If you are logically equating the Headstock to the Swoosh then I am disagreeing with your logic...I'm having a hard time following the analogy of the headstock as the Swoosh...

I'm sorry but you're not understanding trademark law. The headstock shape equates to the swoosh, end of story. The headstock shape does not equate to the Nike name and logo, nor does the swoosh equate to the Squire decal. I can't make it any clearer.

And just so we are on the same page, the OP mentioned that he left the Serial Number

This is a good point, and why seemingly the Fender representative continued to engage on the subject, requesting photos of the serial numbers, although seemingly replying that it wasn't good enough, and that the logo needed to be on the front of the headstock. We can debate whether that's nice or not nice, good business practice or bad business practice, but not whether they would win in court. They ARE right. And the thread title is misleading. They don't care what you do to your own Fender; if you sand the headstock. This is about commerce. This is about selling goods that bare the trademark. They are within their jurisdiction. In Dominus' signature he says he has over 15,000 eBay positives. That means he is heavily involved in commerce. He "regularly" sells Fender parts I assume? Parted out Fenders? Then they have a right to communicate with him. It's not a one-off used neck sale because you bought a Warmoth to replace yours...

Again I'm not saying I'm "on Fender's side" here, or that I would advise them to do this. I'm only telling you guys the reality.

 

[Securb]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

In my opinion, rewinding and changing the magnets in a pickup is a completely different analogy...apples and oranges. A correct analogy would be removing the SD logo and selling them as Duncans with the logo removed.

The Backplate on Duncans I've used all said Seymour Duncan on it–the newer ones had the pickup model on it. The necks in question had the Serial Number un-altered–you can verify the item.

I get you and that is an extreme case. In Fender's defence they probably have scalloped necks and poorly refretted necks that users complain to the factory about and it is out of their control. I can see them shutting down ANY modified parts on Ebay no matter how small the modification is to the product.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

I'm sorry but you're not understanding trademark law. The headstock shape equates to the swoosh, end of story. The headstock shape does not equate to the Nike name and logo, nor does the swoosh equate to the Squire decal. I can't make it any clearer.

This is a good point, and why seemingly the Fender representative continued to engage on the subject, requesting photos of the serial numbers, although seemingly replying that it wasn't good enough, and that the logo needed to be on the front of the headstock. We can debate whether that's nice or not nice, good business practice or bad business practice, but not whether they would win in court. They ARE right. And the thread title is misleading. They don't care what you do to your own Fender; if you sand the headstock. This is about commerce. This is about selling goods that bare the trademark. They are within their jurisdiction. In Dominus' signature he says he has over 15,000 eBay positives. That means he is heavily involved in commerce. He "regularly" sells Fender parts I assume? Parted out Fenders? Then they have a right to communicate with him. It's not a one-off used neck sale because you bought a Warmoth to replace yours...

Again I'm not saying I'm "on Fender's side" here, or that I would advise them to do this. I'm only telling you guys the reality.

Rather than argue, I will just say the whole point of Trademark law is two-fold, to protect the Trademark holder and to not mislead consumers (see trademark infringement.) If it came to a court case (which is illogical for the case of a $30 used neck) it would depend on what part of the Country the case was held as judges across this country fall on either pro-business or pro-consumer in their court decisions. Fender would have a hard time proving damage by the OP's description and would have an extremely hard time proving that a consumer was mislead when the item's authenticity is right there on the headstock and heel.

And for the record, the title is not misleading as this is what the FMIC Rep told the dominus: "Please be aware that you cannot alter or modify an authentic FENDER(r)/SQUIER(r) headstock, this includes removing the logos, regardless of what your customers may prefer."

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

I get you and that is an extreme case. In Fender's defence they probably have scalloped necks and poorly refretted necks that users complain to the factory about and it is out of their control. I can see them shutting down ANY modified parts on Ebay no matter how small the modification is to the product.

I can definitely understand that–I nearly mentioned that had the OP scalloped the neck then I can understand from your analogy of rewiring and changing the magnets.

And I get where Fender is coming from, I just have a hard time with a person not being able to sell something when he is accurately describing exactly what it is and where the item can still be verified.

 

[firebirdguy72]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

What I don't understand is why they went after dominus... i've seen dozens of necks on ebay that are passed off as "fender"...they spray a bit of nitro on a squier neck, "relic" it and put a fender repro decal on em and sell em for close to a fender neck price... that is messed up. Dominus sanded off an effing decal...

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

What I think is really going on is that they're hassling you in a roundabout fashion because they suspect: 1) You are adding Fender-shaped necks to the market that are not labeled as such (not illegal since they are used; FMIC just doesn't like it). 2) You are [perhaps illegally, they might think] acquiring brand new Squiers and not only parting them out, but doing it in such a way that allows the buyers to easily convert them to fake Fender necks. 3) You are not selling genuine Squier necks, yet you are claiming that they are (something you already proved to them is not true).

You are selling used items; you can do whatever the hell you want to them – end of story. I'm assuming you are at least the 2nd owner of most of these parts, passing them along to what will be the 3rd. You can do whatever you want with them, because in the used market, you are not directly competing with Fender, their distributors, their dealers, or their licensed parts makers. Whether the parts have been de-badged or not is entirely irrelevant to this situation in the legal sense. They will claim that the necks can now be "confused" for genuine Fender necks, but they couldn't possibly, as they have Squier serial numbers and you are clearly stating that they are Squier necks. It's just a red flag to them that you might be shady, yet they are too lazy, cheap, and unprofessional to go after you using proper legal techniques. Instead they're just gonna try to extra-legally annoy and scare you into ceasing and desisting. Bottom line: the company hasn't not a legal leg to stand on to regulate the goings on of the private used market. They're just trying to do it anyhow, on the cheap and easy. If they want you to stop what you're doing, they should at least have the balls to do it using proper legal channels, not extra-legal techniques.

IMO the best way to deal with this is to cease personal contact with FMIC, and refer them to your lawyer for all future communications. Try to find various ways to have the issue publicized. Have your attorney consider all legal avenues for protecting your liberties to sell whatever the hell you want on the used market, and for making FMIC answer for their attempts to control your perfectly legal actions. They only do what they do because it has worked in the past without legal challenge or bad press.

ALL that being said, and as much as I think you should fight them, I also have to say that I find it hard to believe that removing the logos before selling is in any way advantageous to you. I would certainly never buy one that way, and I'd think of anyone who did seek one out as a total dope.

 

[Dahla]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

Have your attorney consider all legal avenues for protecting your liberties to sell whatever the hell you want on the used market, and for making FMIC answer for their attempts to control your perfectly legal actions.

I dunno, I think all the lawyers who would agree with you on this are busy defending pirate bay.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[astrozombie]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

they're just trying to protect their brand man. Since the logos have been sanded off, it creates confusion as to whether or not it's legit. if they're in bad shape, it means that people will assume it's either a knock-off or that squier quality has gone down.


they want it to be OFFICIAL, it either OFFICIALLY SUCKS or is a copy.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

With an FMIC neck, the headstock is the trademark, the logo is the branding. With the Nike shoe, the swoosh is the trademark, the logo is the branding. The swoosh is not the logo, and the headstock decal is not the trademark.

And yeah, I don't get the "remove the logos to make the head look cleaner" statement. Aside from the fact it's a Squier logo, I'm not understanding how the logo makes it "dirty".


However, I wonder if they're going after the other FMIC-owned neck sellers? No more loose Charvel ProMod or Jackson Adrian Smith necks?

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

I dunno, I think all the lawyers who would agree with you on this are busy defending pirate bay.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I laughed way too hard when I read this! :lmao:

With an FMIC neck, the headstock is the trademark, the logo is the branding. With the Nike shoe, the swoosh is the trademark, the logo is the branding. The swoosh is not the logo, and the headstock decal is not the trademark.

And yeah, I don't get the "remove the logos to make the head look cleaner" statement. Aside from the fact it's a Squier logo, I'm not understanding how the logo makes it "dirty".


However, I wonder if they're going after the other FMIC-owned neck sellers? No more loose Charvel ProMod or Jackson Adrian Smith necks?

Its wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt, but interesting story here behind the swoosh. Technically, the Swoosh is Nike's logo...it is also trademarked. But I get what you are saying.

The Charvel neck I had they took issue with but after talking with several people they realized what it was, dropped their issue with me and allowed my eBay post. So I dunno...probably comes and goes in waves of cleaning up eBay and all.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

Fender is right and justified. Don't get me wrong, I want to support you and be on your side. But maybe the best way to think of it is that you buy a pair of Nike's, which obviously contain Nike's trademark swoosh on the side. You next proceed to take the Nike name off the shoes. You are now effectively selling a brand-less shoe that contains Nike's trademark.

Mighty Mite, Allparts, Warmoth, probably others all sell necks with "headstock licensed by Fender" type of message deeply burnt into the heel. And for this, they pay money. Once you sand the logo from a Squire (or Charvel, Fender, any other brand FMIC has chosen to use on their trademarked headstocks) its the equivalent of selling a non-Nike shoe with the Nike swoosh.

Umm . . . this logic is silly. To point out how silly, let's use a car example. If I own a Mercedes, and someone steals the pointy thingie from the hood, you're telling me that I should never be able to sell my Mercedes as a Mercedes any more? It has suddenly been transformed into a generic car?

I'd be shocked to hear of any court in the world allowing a car company to prevent the sale of a vehicle for that reason.

 

[frankfalbo]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

Umm . . . this logic is silly. To point out how silly, let's use a car example. If I own a Mercedes, and someone steals the pointy thingie from the hood, you're telling me that I should never be able to sell my Mercedes as a Mercedes any more? It has suddenly been transformed into a generic car?

I'd be shocked to hear of any court in the world allowing a car company to prevent the sale of a vehicle for that reason.

No, what's silly is your car analogy, in that it has absolutely nothing to do with what's happening here. This is a replacement part, not the whole guitar. If you have to make a car analogy it would be like Mercedes investigating counterfeit hub caps with the trademarked Mercedes logo. Dr Newcenstein has it right.

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

No, what's silly is your car analogy, in that it has absolutely nothing to do with what's happening here. This is a replacement part, not the whole guitar. If you have to make a car analogy it would be like Mercedes investigating counterfeit hub caps with the trademarked Mercedes logo. Dr Newcenstein has it right.

I'd argue that your analogy doesn't make much sense. The guitar necks being sold aren't counterfeit . . . and the trademark had been removed, not added to it.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

It's really hard to draw a good analogy here...Fender's Headstock is trademarked and the OP did not remove the headstock so hard to draw a good anology. And I agree, the guitar necks in the OP are not counterfeit nor do they have a fraudulent logo put on. There was no intent to deceive and the items were still able to be authenticated.

On a side note, imagine what would have happened had Fender trademarked the Strat Shape like Gibson with the Les Paul...

 

[Securb]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

What I see happening here is Fender probably has an intern or assistant in the social media branch of Fender marketing. Part of that person's job is to scan Ebay and other outlets for anything detrimental to the brand. There is most likely a laundry list of things they look at from counterfeit Strats to counterfeit parts. It is easier for them to simply flag a questionable part then to weed through the serial numbers of every altered neck and body on the web. Some genuine Fender parts will definitely get flagged like the OP's neck but at the end of the day they are trying to protect the brand and the consumer. From what I can see the only option the OP has is to put a Squire water slide decal on the neck or sell it privately.

The screwed up part of this is Ebay sells the water slide decals for $10

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

What I see happening here is Fender probably has an intern or assistant in the social media branch of Fender marketing. Part of that person's job is to scan Ebay and other outlets for anything detrimental to the brand. There is most likely a laundry list of things they look at from counterfeit Strats to counterfeit parts. It is easier for them to simply flag a questionable part then to weed through the serial numbers of every altered neck and body on the web. Some genuine Fender parts will definitely get flagged like the OP's neck but at the end of the day they are trying to protect the brand and the consumer. From what I can see the only option the OP has is to put a Squire water slide decal on the neck or sell it privately.

The screwed up part of this is Ebay sells the water slide decals for $10

I agree and never understood why you can buy the decals on eBay when they go after the fraud stuff...although I bought a Charvel decal for a guitar I built (never selling that neck, Roasted Quartersawn Maple with dark Rosewood board...best neck I've ever played.)

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

What I see happening here is Fender probably has an intern or assistant in the social media branch of Fender marketing. Part of that person's job is to scan Ebay and other outlets for anything detrimental to the brand. There is most likely a laundry list of things they look at from counterfeit Strats to counterfeit parts. It is easier for them to simply flag a questionable part then to weed through the serial numbers of every altered neck and body on the web. Some genuine Fender parts will definitely get flagged like the OP's neck but at the end of the day they are trying to protect the brand and the consumer. From what I can see the only option the OP has is to put a Squire water slide decal on the neck or sell it privately.

The screwed up part of this is Ebay sells the water slide decals for $10

Also, suppressing sales of used parts is good for Fender as a company (used stuff is actually competition for new stuff), so there's no incentive for them to be picky when flagging things.

 

[Diminished Triad]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

As long as you shave or reshape for yourself, you can do as you please. When you do the same for resale, even when informing customers, still have lots of regs to deal with. Fender is a big boy on the block here, no doubt throwing its weight around. They have a template and if your actions fall anywhere near they come down on you without taking you to lunch first or much thought. Could be similar to the way Gibson treated Warmoth when Warmoth was selling look-a-like Les Paul bodies and making it clear they were not Les Pauls or made by Gibson. Didn't matter.....Gibson has the rights to the shape....with or without a decal. Fender has the same rights to its product and both companies would not want to sit back and see a small/tiny businessman do well because he sold their product while pushing it off as "his own." Of course there is the written description nullifying this.....at the first level.....but eventually that same neck makes its way around coming from "Smith's Necks" when in reality it is a Fender neck, for example.

Seemed to me the nice lady from Fender didn't carefully read your clear explanation of the facts and said things that are true but not all applicable. Good luck!

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: FMIC (Fender) apparently has legal authority over what you do with their guitars.

What I see happening here is Fender probably has an intern or assistant in the social media branch of Fender marketing. Part of that person's job is to scan Ebay and other outlets for anything detrimental to the brand. There is most likely a laundry list of things they look at from counterfeit Strats to counterfeit parts. It is easier for them to simply flag a questionable part then to weed through the serial numbers of every altered neck and body on the web. Some genuine Fender parts will definitely get flagged like the OP's neck but at the end of the day they are trying to protect the brand and the consumer. From what I can see the only option the OP has is to put a Squire water slide decal on the neck or sell it privately.

The screwed up part of this is Ebay sells the water slide decals for $10

My thoughts exactly. Probably a overzealous and ignorant young employee or intern trying to prove herself.