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Kicked off Craigslist twice for Les Paul Goldtop Chinese Copy.


epi56ebony

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I'm not one that would get likely to be "angry" about this topic, but it's kind of like buying ivory. If you buy ivory, it doesn't mean you poached an elephant, but it does mean that you contributed to the worldwide demand for poached elephants. So when it comes to fake-job replicas, I have a moral compulsion to stay clear of those counterfeits. I don't want to have any contribution, no matter how indirect, to that industry. OTOH, I have no problem with folks buying other MIC products as long as it is not a piece that could be used for fraudulent sales.

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You should have gotten rid of it before dumping the money into it. I bought one as a curiosity also, long gone. I sold it on ebay but put a piece of black tape over the logo in the pics. Shipped it the way it was pictured and the buyer was delighted with the surprise under the tape.

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I think you are wrong on that. I am not a lawyer, but as far as I can tell by googling for a couple of minutes, knowingly trafficing counterfeit goods is illegal in the US according to US Code title 18 section 2320.

 

 

its not counterfiet if theres no intent to defruad.

 

basically, if you make a guitar, put a gibson sticker on it and sell it to someone, its perfectly legal. if you sold it in a retail store, thats a different story because you are attemting to profit on the trademarks of another company.

 

if you told the person is WAS a gibson or knowingly failed to mention is wasnt, then its very much illegal of course.

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its not counterfiet if theres no intent to defruad.


basically, if you make a guitar, put a gibson sticker on it and sell it to someone, its perfectly legal. if you sold it in a retail store, thats a different story because you are attemting to profit on the trademarks of another company.


if you told the person is WAS a gibson or knowingly failed to mention is wasnt, then its very much illegal of course.

 

 

Now I amsure you are wrong. If you make a guitar and put a Gibson stocker on it, you are counterfeiting.

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There is no doubt that it is illegal.


 

 

Yes, but that's not what I asked. I asked for evidence of it happening to someone in the UK. See my original quote below.

 

 

Originally Posted by Steadfastly

I doubt it. Can you provide evidence where someone tried to sell one of these in the UK and got fined?

 

 

So, can you?

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I got kicked off Craigslist twice. Some people were upset. I decided why hassle it? It was easier to just keep it and for my own fun I upgraded nearly everything.

 

Still thinking of putting on better tuners. No different than the people on this forum who mod the crap out of their Epiphones and other lower end (and sometime even higher end) guitars.

 

My 60s Goldtop Gibson Les Paul Tribute actually feels much better than my fake and cost about the same.

 

Sometimes you eat filet minion and sometimes and In and Out burger does the trick. I like 'em from high end to low end so for now I'm happy w/the fake. If I ever decide to sell it again at least the next person will have some nice upgrades and I'll take some loss on it.

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I doubt it. Can you provide evidence?

 

 

Nope, just surmising. As I said, likely. I say that because Epiphone guitars are made in Asia for Gibson so there is a good chance this is what happened since a company wouldn't go to the extra work of putting Epiphone on the pickups on a fake Gibson. They would put Gibson instead.

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I think $400 is too much for a "fake" when there are plenty of good single cut guitars for that price that are 100% legit.

 

 

It costs about $400 for an Epi LP. You can buy these guitars for 200 to 300 with 100 shipping. I was able to check it out before I bought it and make sure the neck wasn't warped. All my guitars from my 58 Les Paul Custom Shop and 1960 Masterbuilt CS Fender Shell Pink Strat to my 56 reissued Danelectro are all legit.

 

This was a chance to buy and check out something a bit unique. For me, the $400 was reasonable. Maybe I could have gotten it for $200 w/shipping from China but I was willing to pay extra as insurance that the guitar was in working order.

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I think he's fine. No one is going to prosecute this and he is not attempting to deceive anyone. Stop acting silly and pretending to know the law, guys. One of the defenses to trademark violations in civil cases (it's the same defense for this criminal statute Prawnheed linked) is that there is no likelihood of confusion. Trademark law was initially developed to protect consumers from confusion about goods or services they purchase, not to protect the companies which hold the mark.

 

My opinion as a second year law student at a top law school. :wave:

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You can go to jail for trying to sell counterfeit goods. Not to mention you publicly admitted that you knew it was contraband when you took it into your possession. If what you say is true, you're not being very prudent.

 

 

Again, glad we're anonymous here. Sometimes in life you got to say "F it" throw prudence out the window and howl at the moon! I break laws sometimes, my bad.

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If the police ask for your particulars as part of a criminal investigation, they have to give you up.

 

 

Highly unlikely to happen in this reality. Without intention to deceive / actively trying to rip off a buyer through deception, it would be an absolute waste of the police and court's limited time and resources.

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