Clones and copies?

Ed DeGenaro said:
Except they don’t sell gear tailored to the individual, they tell folks what to like.
Let’s not all of a sudden think marketing has no impact.

A great example is Tyler guitars, the existing customer base of US made guitars that aren’t interested in the the Chinese or Japanese models will tell you it cheapens the brand.
Well when I A/B/C them I have no issue with the Chinese one for 2k€ or the Japanese for twice that. But it’s hard to warrant an 8k price tag on a new US model.

So you got the guys that are into the “either you know, or you don’t” and they don’t want the cheaper version to be that good, and the guys that can’t afford the crazy priced ones hoping it’ll be “good enough”.

And that’s just word of mouth marketing.
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Exactly my point about why IP protection isn’t warranted - the marketing and other aspects of running a successful pedal company are way more critical to success than novel technology.
 
Boudoir Guitar said:
This is kind of framed in reverse. The framing you put forward here is that the defacto standard should be monopoly protection absent a public benefit. Intellectual ”property” was conceived as the anomaly, not the standard. When certain conditions are met, there MAY be a public interest in granting a limited monopoly right, but otherwise everything is public domain.
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IP law goes back to at least Ancient Greece before anyone was worried about the evils of monopolies in modern free markets, and it covers things even where there is competition.

Granting a temporary patent or copyright is in the public’s interest because it encourages invention/creation. Granting trademark protection is in the public’s interest because consumers know who they are buying from.

Giving Gibson a patent on a humbucking pickup design and a trademark for their name and headstock did not grant them a monopoly on electric guitars or guitar pickups. They even had to compete with other humbucking pickup designs like the Filtertron which actually was granted a patent before the Gibson design. So, even when there is no risk of monopoly, IP rules apply.
 
Ed DeGenaro said:
Just so I get this by assembled you mean slapping the hardware on and setting it up? They’re set-neck right?
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From all I know, the necks (regardless of the construction) are mounted here in Hannover. Also, they're plec'ed here. Basically, pretty much anything apart from the main body/neck production is done here. Maybe not on all guitars, but certainly on some (perhaps most).
Add to all this that they're pretty innovative. Their vibrato systems are great and then there's things such as the Multibender, which will get you as close to a pedal steel as it gets without actually having to spend the money on a pedal steel.
Seriously, if anything, Duesenberg doesn't deserve all the constant bashing of our local super-expert.
 
Chocol8 said:
IP law goes back to at least Ancient Greece before anyone was worried about the evils of monopolies in modern free markets, and it covers things even where there is competition.

Granting a temporary patent or copyright is in the public’s interest because it encourages invention/creation. Granting trademark protection is in the public’s interest because consumers know who they are buying from.

Giving Gibson a patent on a humbucking pickup design and a trademark for their name and headstock did not grant them a monopoly on electric guitars or guitar pickups. They even had to compete with other humbucking pickup designs like the Filtertron which actually was granted a patent before the Gibson design. So, even when there is no risk of monopoly, IP rules apply.
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A patent is, by definition, a monopoly right.
 
Chocol8 said:
No, but they looked at two different brands of whatever and chose the cheaper imported one because it did the same job for less money. RCA vs Panasonic, GE vs Samsung etc. Also, initially it was made in Japan or Taiwan, before the Chinese export boom.

If you are old enough you might remember Walmart trying to push “made in USA” for many years. They had to give up, because consumers cared more about cheap.

Another great example is people love to complain about smaller and smaller airline seats with ever worsening service, yet when they go to plan their next trip they go online and find the cheapest airfare. So yeah, companies deliver what consumers want to buy.
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It's interesting how you're framing it as the consumer's fault, not cost-savings measures by the companies, to make more money. Of course consumers bought what was cheap, because most people in the middle class or lower don't have money to throw around.
 
Sascha Franck said:
From all I know, the necks (regardless of the construction) are mounted here in Hannover. Also, they're plec'ed here. Basically, pretty much anything apart from the main body/neck production is done here. Maybe not on all guitars, but certainly on some (perhaps most).
Add to all this that they're pretty innovative. Their vibrato systems are great and then there's things such as the Multibender, which will get you as close to a pedal steel as it gets without actually having to spend the money on a pedal steel.
Seriously, if anything, Duesenberg doesn't deserve all the constant bashing of our local super-expert.
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I’ll take your words for it since I can’t muster enough of a micro shit to look it up.

That said them getting neck and body and glueing the neck is at the very least counterproductive.

As for plek’d that like conventional fret level falls under set up.

I don’t think they get any more a beating than any other gear around here. Aside from the fact that before they moved production from WMIC in Korea they been super tight lipped and where very happy to let folks think they built them in Germany.
That is why folks have a hard on.
 
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They are built in Croatia now . Almost nothing happens in Germany. They absolutely don’t set the necks because they would then need the paint them afterwards. Some are Plek dressed in Germany and set up but only the top models. They deserve all they get. $ 10 pickups utter garbage.
 
I always liked the look of Duesenberg guitars. I occasionally have a look at used models and wonder if I should go for one. I see them in YouTube videos and they sound great. I never really hear anything bad about them most other places apart from some confusion as to where they're actually made.

I then read any duesenberg threads on here and @Eagle is...

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paisleywookiee said:
It's interesting how you're framing it as the consumer's fault, not cost-savings measures by the companies, to make more money. Of course consumers bought what was cheap, because most people in the middle class or lower don't have money to throw around.
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Because that IS what happened and it WAS the consumers who drove it. American manufacturers didn't all start making record profits, many of them went out of business!

Look at what things used to cost and what they cost now in inflation adjusted dollars. Companies HAD to reduce costs because selling prices came DOWN with foreign competition. When TV's were made in the US, a single TV was a major purchase for a household, now people have 5 cheap imported ones in their house.

An American made guitar was also a major purchase, $250 for a Strat in 1954 which is $3,000 adjusted for inflation. A Les Paul was more. Now you can buy an import Strat for less than $250 in 2025 dollars, or less than $20 in 1954 dollars. How does Fender compete with that? They have to make their low end guitars overseas AND they had to cut costs on their MIA guitars. Only the custom shop stuff is priced equivalent to a production guitar in the past. So yeah, it didn't turn in to bigger profits, it turned into lower selling prices.

As for your last statement, that is also not true. The middle class consumer buys way more crap than they did when things were made in the US. Middle class homes have two car garages and families have 2+ cars, multiple TV's multiple cell phones, multiple computers, a collection of guitars, pedals and amps. That's not how my parents and grand parents grew up! One car, one phone with the line shared with the neighbors, one TV or none, one guitar if you saved up for it.
 
Chocol8 said:
Because that IS what happened and it WAS the consumers who drove it. American manufacturers didn't all start making record profits, many of them went out of business!

Look at what things used to cost and what they cost now in inflation adjusted dollars. Companies HAD to reduce costs because selling prices came DOWN with foreign competition. When TV's were made in the US, a single TV was a major purchase for a household, now people have 5 cheap imported ones in their house.

An American made guitar was also a major purchase, $250 for a Strat in 1954 which is $3,000 adjusted for inflation. A Les Paul was more. Now you can buy an import Strat for less than $250 in 2025 dollars, or less than $20 in 1954 dollars. How does Fender compete with that? They have to make their low end guitars overseas AND they had to cut costs on their MIA guitars. Only the custom shop stuff is priced equivalent to a production guitar in the past. So yeah, it didn't turn in to bigger profits, it turned into lower selling prices.

As for your last statement, that is also not true. The middle class consumer buys way more crap than they did when things were made in the US. Middle class homes have two car garages and families have 2+ cars, multiple TV's multiple cell phones, multiple computers, a collection of guitars, pedals and amps. That's not how my parents and grand parents grew up! One car, one phone with the line shared with the neighbors, one TV or none, one guitar if you saved up for it.
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okay guy.
 
paisleywookiee said:
okay guy.
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This isn't opinion, it is fact. If you don't believe me, lookup all the big US based consumer electronics manufacturers from the 50's and 60's and show me the bigger profits they started making with cheaper imports. You can't do that because they mostly made less profits or none and went out of business. Westinghouse, RCA, Zenith...Where are their massive profits?
 
Chocol8 said:
This isn't opinion, it is fact. If you don't believe me, lookup all the big US based consumer electronics manufacturers from the 50's and 60's and show me the bigger profits they started making with cheaper imports. You can't do that because they mostly made less profits or none and went out of business. Westinghouse, RCA, Zenith...Where are their massive profits?
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Okay guy.
 
Chocol8 said:
"Okay guy" = What you say when you are so completely and totally wrong you can't find any facts to support your augment, but your ego is way to big to simply admit that maybe just maybe what you thought was wrong.
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"okay guy", which is nicer than saying I'm tired of interacting with you, because you're a bit of an asshole.
If you really like, you can provide all the proof you'd like about every industry of every sort, or not. I don't actually care enough to continue this, tbh.
 
SillyOctpuss said:
I always liked the look of Duesenberg guitars. I occasionally have a look at used models and wonder if I should go for one. I see them in YouTube videos and they sound great. I never really hear anything bad about them most other places apart from some confusion as to where they're actually made.
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I have personally played several of them (never got one because I simply don't need one, but I may go for one of their lapsteels with the multibender one day...), all of them were just great guitars, without any exception. And as said, several great players seem to think the same.
 
paisleywookiee said:
"okay guy", which is nicer than saying I'm tired of interacting with you, because you're a bit of an asshole.
If you really like, you can provide all the proof you'd like about every industry of every sort, or not. I don't actually care enough to continue this, tbh.
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You are simply incapable of admitting you were wrong and I am the asshole? Okay guy! :rofl
 
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