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I still think this whole Fender-suing-everyone thing will end up with Thomann owning them either partially or completely. But the weird German lawsuit was alwa

by dofm 4mo ago

I still think this whole Fender-suing-everyone thing will end up with Thomann owning them either partially or completely. But the weird German lawsuit was always about the fact that some private equity suits (or bad Hawaiian shirts, it seems) are upset that Thomann (and others) sell the PRS Silver Sky, which as they have probably deduced from the reverb.com data they now own, likely outsells equivalent Fender models by some margin. So I think Thomann are just bringing it on. And they aren't the only ones: LSL hired the lawyer who won the judgement that put the S-type body shape in the public domain in 2009.

borlox 4mo ago
German lawsuits are far less expensive than … what we learn from huge american lawsuits in tv. Unlikely that Thomann will make piles of money. It‘s more about the right to keep selling those guitars and quite some marketing impact.
d1sxeyes 4mo ago
Thomann own an extremely popular brand, Harley Benton, which (obviously) sells S-types. I think it’s more likely that this is about the ST series than about the Silver Sky.
- dofm 4mo ago
  The new CEO of Fender is from the luxury goods world. Each Silver Sky model (SE or non) outsells the equivalent Stratocaster model, from what I understand, by a noticeable margin, which Servco will now know with clarity, because they have sales data from reverb (which they acquired one month before they took out this lawsuit). It is a naïve take, but have a look at what Fender's CEO looks like, how he dresses and carries himself, and tell me that a big part of this isn't injured pride that John Mayer went to PRS. I think if this was really about the cheap body guitars — a nearly zero-margin market for decades — they wouldn't have sent a C&D to LsL or PRS, because that was always going to invite trouble. Harley Benton is a problem at some small level and I am sure Fender will suggest it is, but Fender have had a "buy the real thing" type of marketing campaign for both Fender and Squier since the 90s at least. The 2009 lawsuit made this clear; it detailed all Fender's "buy original" marketing campaigns as a way of pointing out that Fender has never policed the right to make the S-type body shape. Squier competes pretty adequately with Harley Benton and all the other cheap brands; at that price, being "Fender's budget brand" has prudence associated with it. What has changed is that Fender are losing out at the top end to high-end luthiers who give a shit, and PRS. And now they know exactly how badly. This lawsuit will feature a lot of data from reverb.com, I suspect.
  - ben7799 4mo ago
    This is incredibly hard to believe, Fender is many times bigger than PRS. Fender sells at least 10x more guitars than PRS.
- sparkling 4mo ago
  Harley Benton is "extremly popular"? I don't think so and the upper price ceiling for HB seems to be at ~400-500 USD right now. Decent hardware for anyone just starting out with their first instrument, sure, but i never heard of anyone buying a HB as a second or third guitar.
  - d1sxeyes 4mo ago
    Surprised you don’t think HB is extremely popular. Perhaps you’re outside of Europe?

by dofm 4mo ago

borlox 4mo ago

German lawsuits are far less expensive than … what we learn from huge american lawsuits in tv. Unlikely that Thomann will make piles of money. It‘s more about the right to keep selling those guitars and quite some marketing impact.

d1sxeyes 4mo ago

Thomann own an extremely popular brand, Harley Benton, which (obviously) sells S-types. I think it’s more likely that this is about the ST series than about the Silver Sky.

dofm 4mo ago
The new CEO of Fender is from the luxury goods world. Each Silver Sky model (SE or non) outsells the equivalent Stratocaster model, from what I understand, by a noticeable margin, which Servco will now know with clarity, because they have sales data from reverb (which they acquired one month before they took out this lawsuit). It is a naïve take, but have a look at what Fender's CEO looks like, how he dresses and carries himself, and tell me that a big part of this isn't injured pride that John Mayer went to PRS. I think if this was really about the cheap body guitars — a nearly zero-margin market for decades — they wouldn't have sent a C&D to LsL or PRS, because that was always going to invite trouble. Harley Benton is a problem at some small level and I am sure Fender will suggest it is, but Fender have had a "buy the real thing" type of marketing campaign for both Fender and Squier since the 90s at least. The 2009 lawsuit made this clear; it detailed all Fender's "buy original" marketing campaigns as a way of pointing out that Fender has never policed the right to make the S-type body shape. Squier competes pretty adequately with Harley Benton and all the other cheap brands; at that price, being "Fender's budget brand" has prudence associated with it. What has changed is that Fender are losing out at the top end to high-end luthiers who give a shit, and PRS. And now they know exactly how badly. This lawsuit will feature a lot of data from reverb.com, I suspect.
- ben7799 4mo ago
  This is incredibly hard to believe, Fender is many times bigger than PRS. Fender sells at least 10x more guitars than PRS.
sparkling 4mo ago
Harley Benton is "extremly popular"? I don't think so and the upper price ceiling for HB seems to be at ~400-500 USD right now. Decent hardware for anyone just starting out with their first instrument, sure, but i never heard of anyone buying a HB as a second or third guitar.
- d1sxeyes 4mo ago
  Surprised you don’t think HB is extremely popular. Perhaps you’re outside of Europe?