Yes, there is sometimes that sort of issue with
Chinese firms. I was once contacted by a Chinese
firm offering to sell cheap baroque bows and the
image they used was one of my own bows which
they'd scraped off my website!
I think there is also a similar parallel trade in
the Pakistani lutes between the Early Music Shop
and various eBay suppliers. The system has been
going for years in the food industry where
manufacturers make essentially the same product
for different firms. One summer holiday while at
school I worked in the Chivers jam factory where
one of the lines was making the same jam for
Marks & Spencers own label. The only difference
was that the workers on that line had to wear
hair-nets.
On Ralf's other point about copying historic
instruments, the Victoria and Albert Museum used
to print on their drawings that the drawings
themselves were copyright but that you were
permitted to make an instrument based on them.
Best wishes,
David
At 11:35 +0200 20/9/19, David van Ooijen wrote:
Well put.
Gibson has some of their designs patented. You can copy an ES335, but
you are not allowed to copy the shape of the shoulders, the shape of
the top of the headstock, the shape of the trussrod cover and the
Gibson logo and name. I suppose LDD has a patent on their logo, but on
the shape and design of their instruments? It will all come down to the
agreement LDD has with it's Chinese supplier, but I think Thomann is
free to buy on the international market.
*******************************
David van Ooijen
[1]davidvanooi...@gmail.com
[2]www.davidvanooijen.nl
*******************************
On Fri, 20 Sep 2019 at 11:29, Ralf Mattes <[3]r...@mh-freiburg.de> wrote:
Am Freitag, 20. September 2019 11:00 CEST, David van Ooijen
<[4]davidvanooi...@gmail.com> schrieb:
> I think the author of the video is too quick in accusing
Thomann
> instead of the Chinese supplier.
I think the author of said video might be up for an unpleasant
surprise - he's accusing
Thomann of a crime. He better has some convincing prove of
evidence.
> Chinese suppliers of copied
> instruments often use the pictures from the originals, and
not form
> their own work. If you go internet shopping for a cheap
Chinese Gibson,
> Fender or fancy jazz guitar, you'll find the suppliers use the
pictures
> taken from the websites of the original guitars, and not
pictures from
> what you will actually get.
I don't think this is a case of a stolen picture. If I understand
correctly, the instruments sold by
Le Luth Dorɬ© are in fact produced by a third party manufacturer
("... provisions of LLD's manufacturing agreements"
to quote their statement). It's rather likely that said (unnamed)
manufacutrer (most likely a chinese company)
did sell the same instruments to Thomann (a company that doesn't
build instruments at all, it's just a large resale
company). Whether or not this was legal depends on the contracts
between Le Luth Dorɬ© and it's manufacturer.
Accusing Thomann of "copyright/inelectual property" infringement is
pretty silly. They most likely just bought up
a charge of instruments on the international market - after all,
those instruments don't seem to be part of their
regular catalog.
> I'm sure Thomann violates copyright laws by
> distributing these instruments, if they actually did because
in all the
> stories I haven't heard anyone yet who actually bought one of
the
> Thomann Chanterelle copycat lutes, but I think the focus of
LDD should
> be at looking at what's going on at their Chinese lute
supplier.
> On a side note. I'm interested in the copyright on a
historically
> accurate lute. If a luthier makes a historically accurate
lute, whose
> copyright are you infringing if you make that same
historically
> accurate lute?
Even so IANAL I'm pretty shure there is no "copyright" on instrument
(or any kind of industrial) design.
There is either a patent (highly unlikely ;-) or what is called a
'utility patent' / 'utility model' (germ. "Gebrauchsmuster").
Now, in most jurisdictions, those need to be registered before you
can enforce them. Maybe Le Luth Dorɬ© might
have failed to do so. Or the chinese company just didn't care - this
IS a known problem in the chinese-european
trade.
Cheers, RalfD
--
References
1. mailto:davidvanooi...@gmail.com
2. http://www.davidvanooijen.nl/
3. mailto:r...@mh-freiburg.de
4. mailto:davidvanooi...@gmail.com
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