Folks......I keep getting contacted by guitar companies about posts that have trademark violations. Please don't post about any instrument that breaks intellectual property rights (see Rule 4 in the TGP rules). Whether you agree or not, building these guitars is illegal and, in my opinion, is unethical. It doesn't matter what country they are made in. It's your business what you purchase and I'm not going to tell anyone what they can and can't buy. However, once it is posted on TGP, it becomes a problem. Your help in this would be most appreciated.
Edited to add: I have received a number of PMs and wanted to address the questions here. Asking if a guitar is genuine is fine. That is different from posting a "look at what I have" type of post about a guitar that uses another company's trademarks. The problem that leads companies to contact TGP is more based on people posting "Look at my new guitar" or "Here is my replica guitar being built" threads. We also tend to be contacted when someone tries to sell a guitar that illegally uses another company's trademarks.
We do not look for things like this and realistically can't. With thousands of posts every day, we tend to respond to reported posts or when we are contacted by a company. For example, Gibson is very aggressive in looking for intellectual property violations, including their trademarks for headstock shape, use of "Gibson" or "Les Paul". We are NOT experts on trademarks and don't pretend to be. We simply follow our legal and ethical obligations when contacted by an authorized representative of a company. Brian Scherzer: Co-founder of The Gear Page
