Where this was said
Gibson's 1993 Precedent and the Reasonable Corporate Move
At 12:36 · chapter starts 11:05
Charlie Harding puts Fender's behavior in context: Gibson has owned the exclusive trademark on the Les Paul guitar silhouette since 1993, and for Fender to pursue similar protection for the Stratocaster is, in Harding's words, 'reasonable.' The electric guitar body shape doesn't acoustically matter the way it does in an acoustic guitar — you can make an electric look like anything, from a flying V to a spiked metal monstrosity — so claiming one iconic shape is in principle defensible. What makes Fender's move feel different, Harding suggests, is the weaponized aggression: cease-and-desist letters targeting small boutique builders rather than corporate giants. He calls it the 'predictable corporate act' — inevitable, defensible, and yet deeply at odds with the belief that music and its tools belong to everyone.
