First of all, congratulations on your math skills: if your pair bought in 2021 has been "rocking for 5 years," your calendar must be quite unique. Secondly, check your facts and calm your paranoia: I am Belgian, not French. My username "Melone Musk" is just a pun, not an invitation to spin ridiculous conspiracy theories about the KGB or Apartheid. It is quite ironic that you accuse me of "whataboutism" when you are the one launching personal attacks regarding my nationality and username just to deflect from the actual topic.

I never attacked you personally, and I honestly couldn't care less about Levi's financial restructuring or Fender's legal battles. My one and only point was to correct your conclusion: associating Levi's with "quality" nowadays is pure nonsense. Use another example if you want to illustrate your corporate theories, but not this one.

Learn to read properly: when I mentioned wearing jeans "intermittently 5 days a week," it obviously implies rotating between two pairs. In the 80s, such a rotation allowed jeans to easily last 2 to 3 years without a single issue, because the fabric was a heavy 100% cotton denim (12 to 14 oz). Today, with the exact same rotation, Levi's thin fabric blended with elastic fibers tears at the crotch in barely 6 months. This is a technical fact.

Your argument about an exclusive "US quality" proves how disconnected you are from industrial reality. Levi's closed its last US factories back in 2003. For over twenty years, American consumers have been buying the exact same mass-produced, low-grade jeans made in Mexico, Vietnam, or Bangladesh as the rest of the world.

The "corporate trajectory" you love analyzing so much saved their finances at the direct expense of product quality. Between 1996 and 2004, Levi's revenue plummeted from $7.1 billion to $4 billion. What saved them from bankruptcy wasn't some "magical manufacturing innovation," but a textbook aggressive cost-cutting strategy: total offshoring, abandoning heavy raw cotton for cheaper, lighter synthetic blends (elastane/polyester), while maintaining or increasing retail prices. The result? A massive corporate gross margin (now sits around 58%). They optimized profits by selling a structurally inferior product at a premium price, wrapped in green marketing (like the Water<Less program, which does absolutely nothing to make the fiber stronger).

I replied precisely to the word "quality" that you yourself typed three times in your post. This isn't whataboutism; you simply cannot stand having your armchair analysis contradicted by corporate and real-world facts. Next time, use your four languages to better understand your interlocutors instead of being condescending.

EDIT:

If you still refuse to take my word for it, step out of your corporate bubble and look at the actual reality of the US market. Go check the Levi's racks at JCPenney or Kohl's: the back patches are cheap jacron cardboard instead of real leather, and the denim has been drastically thinned out. Or look at Walmart and Target, where Levi's had to introduce their low-end 'Signature by Levi Strauss & Co.' sub-brand just to peddle disposable $25 jeans.

Ask any experienced retail clerk at these major department stores what they honestly think about the decline in fabric durability over the last two decades. Better yet, talk to any professional tailor or seamstress. Mine constantly has to repair my jeans by sewing reinforcing fabric into the crotch area. She explicitly told me that out of all the clothing repairs customers bring to her shop, modern, mass-produced jeans torn at the crotch represent by far her highest volume of work. It is a global issue caused by the subpar quality of today's fast fashion. And she doesn't need to use my (old and still perfect) washing machine to realize that.

Just take a look at the hardware as well: even the rivets and buttons, which used to be made of high-quality copper, have been replaced with cheap plated metals and low-grade alloys. They lose their durability and end up oxidizing, leaving rust-like stains and discoloration on the denim around the pockets.

Even more telling: the very last historic textile mill that manufactured genuine, heavy American denim for Levi's—Cone Mills White Oak in Greensboro—permanently shut down in 2017. Today, there isn't a single millimeter of American-made denim left in commercial Levi's jeans. Even for their ultra-luxury $400 collector line (Levi's Vintage Clothing), they are forced to import their fabric from the Kaihara mill in Japan.

And this is exactly where their trendy green marketing comes into play: the water-saving programs (like Water<Less) or the dry manufacturing processes you praise so much aren't magical innovations to "save the planet." They are, first and foremost, brilliant ways to cut factory operational costs (paying for less water and energy) disguised as eco-responsibility to satisfy naive consumers. Lower production costs, cheaper materials, shorter product lifespan, but maintained or increased retail prices thanks to corporate greenwashing. End of story.

 

Last edited: May 21, 2026 at 8:51 AM

While I am sure everyone gets that people want to protect a unique object they invented, it's not like guitar and bass makers haven't been creating copies of main brands since the 1970s. The only only question I can ask is 'why now?' - after so many decades it's more than 40 years late to the party.

 

Hardly any of the amateur musicians I know could afford a brand-new, original Gibson or Fender guitar in the eighties. People simply didn't earn enough money and bought used guitars or replicas. I bought an Epiphone for €250, a licensed Gibson copy made in Korea.

Every company wants and needs to survive and keeps a close eye on what the competition is doing, how the markets are developing, and if they find a mistake by the competition, they might hire their legal team. It's also worth remembering that these companies are run by human beings who are capable of great things and who also make mistakes.

 

I saw someone else's take on this which I liked - it's quite possible that Fender's extreme stance on this, eg "Stop selling Strat-shaped guitars, destroy your current inventory, give us customer lists of all the people who'd bought Strat-shaped guitars" etc is just a hardball opening move, and what they might *really* be after is not to actually shut all sales of Strat-shaped guitars down, but to negotiate a licensing fee on every sale from every company selling Strat-shaped guitars.

That way, Fender get a piece of *all* sales of guitars using "their" shape going forward, which will help support their own sales efforts, and they retain some pricing control over this too, and once that is precedented, then having a heavier legal bat to go after/shut down companies who *aren't* licensed to sell those guitars (including back in the USofA)

I still think their argument and justification for this is weak, but I ain't no lawyer and it seems in this day and age for these kinds of IP/commercial legal cases, it's less about the actual law and more about who's pockets are deepest, so we'll see what happens, and whether the blowback from this is enough to make Fender reconsider this approach. If it fails now, they probably won't get a second shot at it.

 

Why is the argument weak? There was a court ruling for the entire EU market. If the company in question continues in this way, penalties will be imposed and enforced. This isn't a ban republic or a lawless zone; whether you like it or not, the law applies!

"The court concluded that these instruments unlawfully reproduced the Stratocaster design and prohibited the manufacture, offering, and sale of such guitars in Germany and the EU. Violations can be punished with fines of up to 250,000 euros or alternatively with imprisonment."

So what will the Chinese manufacturer Yiwu Philharmonic Musical Instruments Co. do?

A. Stop supplying Europe?
B. Change its production?
C. Simply continue as before?

 

Last edited: May 21, 2026 at 11:06 AM

i think it s too late to stop all the companies that make strat copies, let alone that they can t really expect an electric guitar to be that different, or it would apply to any instrument. Doing it with the tele design or with the p bass would have been more reasonable. Moreover those who want fender will always buy fender if they can afford it, those who can t will rely on other brands, there are too many strats in the world to pursue this silly crusade

 

In fact, they already sued for headstocks in 2009 (pushing ppl to make their own headstocks shapes).
Now body shapes.

"Why now" is always an economical situation.

Some reading :
https://jeffgothelf.com/blog/how-product-management-saved-fender-guitars/

I can add their recent Presonus acquisition (the famous "Fender Studio" ...).
They are in an "aggressive" market push.

 

If the German ruling states that the Stratocaster shape is a protected work of art, then what I believe is that copywrite of 70 years ran out approximately 2 years ago, so how and why did a German court find for the defendant? If the design of the body was never secured as a patent (the headstock design seemingly was), and even if it were the patent has run out. I'm not understanding how it is possible to begin threatening manufacturers both large and small to destroy their stock, stop making guitars in that shape, and if it's true about handing over clients names I can only shake my head in disbelief.

 

The defendant put up no argument. (They didn't show up to argue against it).
So it was a default judgement.

 

Quite right, though...if someone threw up a frivolous suite against any entity wouldn't the judge(s) have due diligence to not see the case at all? After all, they lost the shape case in the USA.

 

1. The Misconception Regarding the 70-Year Copyright Term

The user writes that the 70-year copyright expired about two years ago (since the guitar was released in 1954). This is a fundamental misunderstanding of copyright law: The 70-year term of protection does not begin upon the creation of the work, but only after the death of the author (post mortem auctoris). Leo Fender died in 1991. This means that the copyright would not normally expire until the end of 2061. In this specific case, the court determined (taking into account older laws and international treaties) that the protection lasts at least until 2041. Therefore, the copyright has not yet expired.

2. Why does copyright law even apply?

In 2009, Fender attempted to trademark the body shape. This failed because the shape had become a kind of "generic design" for electric guitars over the decades.

The recent ruling from Düsseldorf now utilizes a different approach: copyright for applied art.
No registration required: Unlike patents or trademarks, copyright does not need to be registered. It arises automatically upon creation if the design reaches a certain level of originality (artistic achievement).

The ruling: The court decided that the 1954 Stratocaster body is not a purely functional form, but rather an independent artistic achievement that reflects the creator's personality.

Important to know: The ruling was a default judgment against a Chinese manufacturer who had copied the Stratocaster's dimensions (including pickguard and jack placement) almost down to the millimeter and imported them into the EU via AliExpress.

Whether Fender can now use this success to force other established manufacturers to withdraw their "Strat-style" guitars from the market is extremely controversial. Many legal experts believe that the ruling would not stand up in a main trial against a major competitor who only uses the design as inspiration – but Fender did win in the first instance against the identical cheap copy from China.

 

Fender deliberately chose a company that would not show in court (too high cost for a small Chinese company to hire a lawyer and send him to Europe). Fender's lawyers counted on that default judgement (knowing the procedural tricks). Now, having this verdict, they try to intimidate other companies and to convince the public that "the law is with them". But all they do is abusing the law.

 

You have a distorted understanding of the law; the whole thing is based on applicable laws and a court ruling.

Fender could just as easily have failed. Large companies like Fender usually have large legal departments and shrewd, well-paid specialist lawyers. A small company simply can't sue Fender because, as a small company, you would run out of money very quickly.

The conclusion for the company in question is:
A. Stop supplying Europe?
B. Change its production?

You would know that Chinese companies sometimes simply copy European and Western products exactly.

A surprising ruling from Düsseldorf strengthens the protection of the Stratocaster body design.
Fender wins legal battle in Germany over the Stratocaster shape
Fender has won a ruling in the Düsseldorf Regional Court classifying the Stratocaster body shape as a copyrighted work of applied art.

 

Last edited: May 21, 2026 at 2:01 PM

I agree with everything that has been said about the reasons why the company is acting at this moment (there are possibly financial issues involved, and it is trying to recover something through this type of action).
As for the impact on users, it also depends on how passionate each person is about the product’s features: Personally, I only like the Fender neck, which is traditionally soft and pleasant to play. As for the headstock and the body, they don’t attract me at all, honestly.
So yeah, Fender’s going full niche mode, locking itself into the purist bubble... their problem, their loss!

 

I've got the solution to all Fender's problems; just rename the company to:
FenderAI
You're welcome Fender's brasses

 

Fender out, acting like OFFender, Pretender, Defender, Suspender, Refund‑er, Litigender, Trend‑er, straight up Bender!
And theeeeen: FenderAI = ‘goodbye’!