Fender has served 60 firms with cease-and-desist orders as part of its high-profile Stratocaster copyright campaign, it has been confirmed.
After Fender won a default EU copyright ruling, the company issued a wave of cease-and-desists to rival companies demanding they stop production on S-style guitars.
LsL Instruments was the first to publicly confirm it had received an order. More names targeted by Fender have since been revealed.
Those include PRS, Yamaha, and Thomann, the latter of which is actively engaged in litigation with Fender over the copyright dispute.
In a recent interview with Fender CEO Bud Cole, Bloomberg reporter Paul Sloan confirmed that other household names, such as Ernie Ball Music Man and Schecter, were also on Fender’s list of targets.
Now, in a followup interview with Vertex Effects, Sloan has shed more light on the broader scope of Fender’s Stratocaster campaign, revealing that 60 firms in total have been hit – Amazon included.
“Some YouTubers have said, ‘How do you get to 60?’” Sloan says. “They try to add up the builders, and it's hard. I've tried to do it, but they're not all builders. There are retailers in there.
“There are retailers, like Thomann, that often have house-brand guitars. Amazon got two cease-and-desist takedown orders based on guitars that were being sold [there]. So when you start adding in the marketplaces, it's easier to get to 60.”
Similar to Thomann, whose Harley Benton brand has drawn the ire of Fender, Amazon sells direct-to-consumer import brands that build Stratocaster copies.
Fender has said in the past that these cheap import sellers have been one of the key targets of its legal action. The firm it took to court to establish its default EU ruling was a Chinese manufacturer making Strat knockoffs.
Moreover, it was these Amazon-based rivals that prompted Fender to release the Squier Debut range – an uber-cheap, entry-level, Amazon-only lineup that sought to take back control of the lower end of the online market.
Fender has now gone a step further by moving to take them out of the competition completely.
Sloan notes that German instrument distributor Warwick has also been roped into the saga, for distributing a Chinese Strat-style guitar that was sold on Amazon. As a result, Warwick is also actively engaged in litigation with Fender.
The new information confirms the scale of Fender’s copyright dispute, which stretches from builders and distributors to retailers alike.
According to Cole, however, boutique builders are no longer the target. Elsewhere in his Bloomberg interview, he announced the company will focus “solely on large manufacturers”.
Cole’s interview with Bloomberg was published just before YouTuber Mary Spender’s, who grilled Cole over the fallout of the legal strategy.
During that interview, Cole admitted he’d heard player concerns over Fender’s quality control issues, and revealed steps had already been put into place to address them.
