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-Guitar Hero is all the rage for consumers.
-Need to take a break from searching for the latest gear during The NAMM Show? Here are some celebrity appearances and parties to check out.
-Attendance increased at Music China and Prolight + Sound, and Kenny G made a big splash.
-Improving next month's NAMM Show is like making the 1972 Miami Dolphins better. But NAMM is certainly not resting on its laurels.
-We reveal all of the manufacturer nominees for Music & Sound Awards to be handed out next month at The NAMM Show.
-Counterfeiting on MI products, particularly guitars, may have received minimal national press, but the problem is real and not going away.
-Find out how to sell products your customers are probably not looking to buy.
-M&SR features its second annual independent retailer roundtable. What's on dealer's mind's this year. Are things better than last year?
-Females playing musical instruments now outnumber males, according to a NAMM/Gallup survey.
-Industry leaders paved the way for the next 10 years.
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-Robert Gault, president of Eminence Speaker, knows a massive amount about China and the pro audio industry. Enough said.
-To say Kurt Ballou, Converge's guitarist, doesn't treat guitars well is like saying the New England Patriots are a decent football team. Ballou had to find a guitar to take a pounding. Here's why he chose First Act's Sheena.
-The amazing story of how Gear Source Music reopened days after a flood took it apart. Spy ventured to the Pacific Northwest to the great city of Seattle. Five minutes with a great wealth of knowledge in the percussion industry, Remo Belli.
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-John Flansburgh, They Might Be Giants' John Flansburgh is a big fan of several independent dealers as well as a host of manufacturers.
-Matt Rubano, the bass player for the red-hot band Taking Back Sunday. Even better, he likes to shop for MI gear.
-Paul English, Willie Nelson has had four wives in 40 years, but only one drummer in that same time frame.
-John 5, When your name is a number, you must be cool. John 5, who played with Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie, says idolizing Eddie Van Halen was a big mistake. How is that possible?
-Luke Pritchard may be “all together Kook-y,” but he has cool memories from the days he visited retail stores.
-Eddie Ojeda; Lead guitarist for Twisted Sister.
-Will Lee; Getting that gig isn’t easy and took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.
-Imogen Heap writes songs, plays piano and the nail violin,Does she plan to design her own instrument?
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THE ASIAN CONTAGION
The Counterfeit Problem Continues to Escalate |
| By Carl Cunningham |
[November 2007 - Page 3] |
I Think I'm a Clone Now
The journey into China's guitar counterfeiting underworld can start innocuously. While shopping on eBay for a guitar for my 14-year-old stepson, I typed "guitar" in the auction Web site's search window and hit the search button, which brought up over 70,000 listings. A curious entry stood out among the other well-written, attention-grabbing eBay listing headlines. I clicked on the listing title, and accidentally stumbled into the heart of the global guitar counterfeiting ring.
The headline enticed with an offer to have "any guitar you want made" in their "own guitar factory." The auction-listing owner was a seller based out of China, though the listing appeared on the United States version of eBay and not on the China-based eBay site.
The auction itself wasn't even for a guitar but was merely an advertisement for the seller's Web site name, www.paylessguitars.com, based out of Beijing but without the usual ".com/cn" Internet suffix that is normally attached to all Web sites originating in China.
Although the Web site was not live in the auction, I typed the URL into my Internet browser. Clicking on the "Gibson Electric Guitar" button revealed a page of Gibson Les Paul guitars offered at stunningly low prices for what appeared at first glance to be genuine, American-made Gibson guitars. The first clue that these were not authentic U.S. Gibson's was the unusual finishes on the guitars not currently offered by Gibson guitars.
The first guitar listed was a Les Paul Supreme for sale at $269 with shipping to anywhere in the world-an incredible guitar bargain for guitars that are typically retail for $3,000 to $4,000. Anson, the first name of a representative for Payless Guitars, offered to deliver to me 10 Gibson Supreme models to the United States, with cases and an 11th guitar as a free bonus-for $3,800, shipping included.
Nichola Sharpe, an eBay representative, said the company has "never welcomed sellers of counterfeit goods. With over 100 million listings worldwide, we can't be the experts," said Sharpe. "We don't even have the items on hand to examine."
Craig Delsack, an attorney from New York with years of experience in trademark, copyright, and intellectual property law, concedes that the current international laws make it easy for Chinese counterfeiters to set up their operations. "Chinese laws fall very short of international guidelines," said Delsack. "Their laws are lax, and their officials look the other way when it comes to enforcement. Whereas the U.S. has Congressional codes that set forth copyright, trademark, and patent laws, China is way behind us. Because of that, it makes it very hard to both find and prosecute the infringing manufacturers. It's going to be difficult, but the entire world needs to support global ramifications and pressure China to change their laws and enforce those laws."
Peter Wolf, director of sales and marketing for Paul Reed Smith Guitars, said the counterfeit guitars aren't cutting too deeply into PRS' sales because "players interested in PRS guitars are very educated buyers. The Chinese quality is so far away from that of a genuine PRS guitar," that very few PRS players would even think of using anything but a real PRS instrument.
[end]
[ pages: 1 - 2 - 3 ]
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