THE BIG STORY: Is Fender about to sue the entire guitar industry?
In May, the company started sending cease-and-desist letters to Yamaha, PRS and other guitar makers. They claimed Fender had recently won copyright protection over the iconic design of the Stratocaster electric guitar — and that look-alike “Strat-shaped” guitars would amount to an infringement of those rights.
It turns out Fender’s been trying to get exclusive IP rights to the double cutaway, S-shaped look of the Stratocaster for more than two decades, first with a failed effort to trademark the design in the U.S., and now with a more successful bid for copyright protection in Europe.
But the rest of the industry isn’t taking the threats lying down: “Our client has every right to continue to sell its guitars with Strat-style guitar bodies, whenever and wherever it so chooses,” one opposing lawyer wrote. “Efforts by your client to bully competitors based on misrepresentations and overstatements are anti-competitive.”
For the whole story, go read Rachel Scharf’s excellent story on the brewing Strat strife. And stay tuned at Billboard to find out if Fender actually files any lawsuits.
You’re reading The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday, subscribe here.
Other top stories this week…
-A judge issued a key early ruling in a lawsuit that claims Drake misleadingly endorsed the online casino Stake and used its money to funnel millions of dollars toward artificial streams.
-When Ariana Grande sued over leaks of her unreleased music, she was hardly the first star to do so. As I explained in a historical deep-dive on leak legal battles, BTS, Madonna, Megan Thee Stallion and Kanye West have all lawyered up over a problem that drives artists nuts.
-Sony Music promoted longtime in-house attorney Stephanie Yu to general counsel and executive vp of business and legal affairs after the departure of Julie Swidler.
-A German court ruled Suno broke copyright law by training its AI models on unlicensed songs, one of the first major legal blows to an AI music lab.
-A U.K. judge ordered Amy Winehouse’s dad to pay over $1 million to two of the late singer’s friends as punishment for an “unjustified and unfounded” lawsuit over merchandise.
–Afroman filed a new lawsuit against one of the Ohio police officers who raided his property, months after the rapper won a high-profile free speech jury verdict against them.
-Ye (formerly Kanye West) reached a settlement with an ex-staff member who accused him of widespread sexual misconduct.
