I understand the ethic side of Todd experience can be argued but I disagree calling his action criminal activity.

Its not like the guitar was smuggled to USA as if it was drugs, some official let the item pass. The maker of the guitar is guilty sure, but if they are letting that item into the country (where Fender is....) then the users cannot be blamed. Thats why what Todd is doing isn't illegal.

Sorry to blunt, but you are wrong. Rich's post above is correct. In this country, knowingly selling counterfeit goods is a federal crime. You can debate the moral issue, but selling counterfeits is inarguably illegal.

I guess this would be the first Its sure heating up the views so though maybe money laundering is on deck but I kinda doubt it. I guess I could embezzle from myself or something If buying one fake strat gets this kind of attention, I may have to put it on my youtube channel. Certainly a hot button topic it seems.




Going over the speed limit and fudging on your taxes are illegal as well. We got wads of laws here to be sure I must also admit I have broken the speed limit in times of hurry.



As for the law..

The U.S. Department of Justice, however, has stated that federal law doesn’t prohibit an individual from buying a counterfeit product for personal use, even if they do so knowingly.http://consumer.findlaw.com/consumer-trans...-resources.html


So yeah you can buy a fake strat if you want But if you dont' then don't. It's that simple. Let's all try to keep our personal politics out of it if we can. Hopefully just post about guitar stuff. This post started as a review of a fake. That's it If we all keep our politics to ourselves I think the forum would be much better served.

As far as legality, I didn't sell it, I was thinking of a different guitar, it was stolen. Problem solved

I am open to questions about the quality of the instrument and such or other folks who have tried them and what they think.


This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Jul 17 2017, 06:24 PM

You need to go back and edit your post where you admitted selling it .

I know it probably feels like everyone is ganging up on you, telling you what you are doing is unethical and illegal. Personally, I don't fault you. Heck, I've been tempted myself. But I can tell you this much: once you are the victim of a crime like this, you tend to take it more seriously.

This personally feels to me as if its massively getting blowing out of proportion for one fake guitar. Surely there are much more serious things happening in the world to get upset about.

To be honest a see more serious things happening every weekend when am out in the pubs.

This post has been edited by liveOASISforever: Jul 17 2017, 06:49 PM

Todd is correct in stating that it is not necessarily illegal to buy a counterfeit item and maybe it should be, but the problem is that it is absolutely illegal to sell it.
What I don't understand is why he felt the need to actually buy a counterfeit guitar with a scalloped neck to try it out and then promote it here when he surely could have found a legit guitar in a music store in a city as big as Atlanta to try out and determine in a short period of time whether or not it suited him. I live in Alaska and I found both an Yngwie and a Blackmore Strat to try up here in 2 different music stores and it didn't cost me anything other than gas money and time to get into Anchorage.


Do you see things in the pubs that contributes to negatively affecting the economy of your country to a tune of up to 250 billion dollars a year or more depending on how you look at it?

This post has been edited by AK Rich: Jul 17 2017, 07:21 PM

Where do all the doctors stand who sell and install fake breasts??????

Sorry to lower the tone, just trying to lighten things up a bit

This post has been edited by Phil66: Jul 17 2017, 07:29 PM

I really couldnt care less. One fake guitar.Its no the end of the world. I have done much worse things myself

One raindrop doesn't amount to much either but when it is combined with many others it can result in flooding.

Uggh. To reiterate.

As for the law..

The U.S. Department of Justice, however, has stated that federal law doesn’t prohibit an individual from buying a counterfeit product for personal use, even if they do so knowingly


http://consumer.findlaw.com/consumer-trans...-resources.html

I quoted the law for you to try to update you on what the law says. Read it again, it's perfectly legal to buy a fake for personal use. PERFECTLY LEGAL, so yes, it's LEGAL to buy any fake you want for personal use. It's "Trafficking" that's illegal. One unit does NOT constitute "Trafficking" so your argument that it's a federal crime to buy and sell one fake is simply flat out wrong.

It's not everyone gangine up, just a few folks like you and RICH. But believe me I'd taken grief from far more griefy folks than you two so knock yourself out. But yeah, again NOT ILLEGAL to buy a fake for personal use, NOT a federal crime.

As for rammikins beef with fakes, Yeah I"m guessing you got really taken advantage of somehow which is why you have such a beef with this. I guess I'd be miffed to if someone got the better of me. Good news for me is, I went in eyes open so I don't have the same beef you do with it. No need to share how you got taken, I get it, you got taken and now your miffed. It happens, especially on the interweb. But I would say get updated on the law as written before accusing someone of a "Federal Crime". Just going a bit far imho.



Todd





RICH! Thank you for your continued support of my thread Thought you were out but good to see you back! Sadly you argument is a logical fallacy called "The Slippery Slope" it's so common it's got a name. Logical fallacy does not make for good argument.




BINGO!! We have a bit of zealotry going on, which happens when an issue hits people the wrong way. They get over zealous and over reach and blow things way out of proportion. It's one fake guitar. Not the apocalypse.




My thoughts exactly But we do have several logical fallacy arguments blowing it up in to ruination of our economy and such.





Now that's talking about something I'm sure we would all like to know. What if the implant came from China? Even if it didn't it's still a fake! Is trafficking in fake breasts the ruination of our economy! Yes! One gal getting a boob job leads to millions of gals getting a boob job and then the world explodes!! Well done

Todd





This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Jul 17 2017, 07:55 PM

It is illegal to sell counterfeit goods. Even one guitar. In my line of business, this is something one becomes very familiar with. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong. But that would be like me telling you you're wrong about something related to playing the guitar .

Again, I'm not condemning you for what you did. In fact I think it's very understandable. My only purpose in jumping into this thread is to point out that one's sensitivity to this issue is related to whether or not you've been a victim of this crime. I suppose that's true of a lot of crimes. Anyway, I think that helps explain why some people think this is important and others don't.

This post has been edited by Rammikin: Jul 17 2017, 08:32 PM

I found the law you are talking about!! Did not know it till now. But yeah I won't be selling anymore fakes or buying them. I've decided to change my story to "I BURNED IT". Didn't even get stolen So I bought it for personal use, which is legal, then set it on fire.

I think rich is more concerned on principle just from his posts, but I could be wrong. maybe he got taken as well. evidently you must have gotten hit BAAAAD by this somehow as you really are on the war path about it where most folks just see is as "meh, so what it's a fake". Which is more how I see it.

As for "made in america" which is a big new promo by our president. It's hypocrisy at it's best. Wads of his products are made in CHINA and we have no idea how young the employees are. Yet he is pushing' Made in America". Horse raddish.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-po...m=.cebb2052a624

His daughter Ivanka makes use of a factory in CHINA to make her branded clothing line. The shop has been accused of multiple violations including long hours poor conditions and pay as low as $63 a week.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/eco...m=.4338bbf34cc8




This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Jul 17 2017, 08:54 PM

Whatever man. You can ignore the bigger picture if you like but it doesn't change anything. What you have done is wrong no matter how you try to rationalize it. There really is no good argument for it. You're welcome.

My luthiers experience; Some kid one day bought a customshop Fender, my luthier immediatly noticed that it was a real deal American strat but the customshop logo on it was fake. The store sold the kid a real Fender that was a fake customshop model, hopefully they were found guilty.

This is how counterfeits are achnowledged as illegal, but selling it as a copy of something by the seller is legal. I also dislike this and consider as a loophole, such items simply should not exists but as an honest seller Todd isn't doing anything illegal.

Edit; Maybe we can see it like what Kemper does? not exactly but sort of similar situation to me.



Thats a good one

This post has been edited by Mertay: Jul 17 2017, 09:17 PM

I know you're trying to help, and that you dislike the practice of producing counterfeit guitars, but what you're saying about the legality simply is not true. Even Todd admits selling counterfeits in the US is illegal.

I feel there is a gray area we're missing.

Example's like software sampling, music after mp3, taste and smell copyed wine and perfume, mona lisa pictures all over the internet...unless the seller lies to make illegal profit, all legal actions I've known were always made to the (so called) companys that make these fake items not to their customers.

If this is strickly written by law in USA, I'm ok with your argument but to me if a law isn't put in action by authoritys then someone in the position of Todd is the last guy to blame. Frankly, in such a real world blaming the users harder or as hard the their goverment or the fake company are also to me unethical or atleast unfair.

Edit; oh there also the "happy birthday" song which is copyrighted in USA, no family not paying to sing it at home can be considered criminals its simply too harsh.

This post has been edited by Mertay: Jul 17 2017, 10:16 PM

The law is clear as to the illegality of selling counterfeit goods. It makes no difference if Todd made a profit or not, or if he was honest about it being a counterfeit or not. However, the chances that he would be charged and prosecuted for the crime are remote because he is a small fish so to speak. The Fed's, and Fender would be much more interested in the person or persons responsible for selling him the counterfeit guitar. But then again, sometimes the Fed's like to make an example of what can happen to even the small fish in such matters to remind everyone that the sale of counterfeit goods is highly illegal.
Probably the only reason the Fed's would go after Todd is if they thought he could provide information that would result in the prosecution of the bigger fish, in which case they would likely cut a deal with him where Todd would avoid prosecution in exchange for information that would lead to a bigger bust. It doesn't seem likely that Todd has any such information. The Fed's are much more interested in busting the original sellers or organization which would actually yield some meaningful results in curbing the illegal counterfeit trade.


This post has been edited by AK Rich: Jul 18 2017, 06:13 AM

Whatever indeed Thanks for your continued support of my thread here Please feel free to continue supporting it with as many posts as you like. Try to avoid logical fallacy in your arguments if possible though, they make fore VERY weak arguments indeed.

Here is a link to a list of logical fallacies which I'm sure you will find familiar. They are very effective on folks that have no idea what a logical fallacy is. I do know what one is so they don't work on me nearly as well. At least I got something out of all that time in Uni

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/659/03/

But let's keep out judgmental comments to ourselves and I think the forum will be better for it.



If the feds are interested in curbing fakes on ebay, they certainly don't show it. There are more fake strats on ebay than you can count. All of them come from china. Like a lot of products sold by Donald and Ivanka trump. China is a still a cheap place to maek stuff. So they make wads of fake stuff as well. All the feds would have to do is look on ebay for a wad of fakes seller. Even ebay claims to be against the practice, yet they let these guys sell anyway. I'm just the end buyer. And no, I don't think someone buying a fake strat is going to cause the economy to implode. If the feds thought it was that important, they would do something about it and I would not have 1000 fake strats to choose from. Beyond that it's a judgement call. If one doesn't want to buy fakes, one should not. Simple as that. Telling me what's "right and wrong" isn't your business, nor anybodies business. I"ll make my own decisions thanks. Your welcome

This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Jul 22 2017, 04:04 AM

Let it go. Four people took the time to politely reply to your thread saying they had ethical objections to counterfeit guitars. As for the legal aspect, you admitted you didn't know the federal law that forbids selling counterfeit goods but now you do. Leave it there and move on. Life is too short.

That's my point exactly. Folks should keep their ethical objections to themselves IMHO as they have nothing to do with guitar. It's a personal decision to buy a fake or not. It's really nobody elses business to judge it. Let's all keep our judgements to ourselves eh? Just keep it business as it were in terms of guitar. That's what I wish folks would let go.

But again, it's perfectly legal to buy a FAKE for personal use. It gets tricky when you try and sell it. But even though it's technical illegal, it's a small fry thing to sell a fake so it's not gonna cause any issue more than likely as it happen on ebay every single day. The ethical ramifications are a personal decision. Not a public decision. For those who disagree with fakes, that's fine. I don't need to hear about it. The forum would be better served imho if we just kept it to guitar. Let everything else go.