TGF wrote:
Gibson and Fender fans will defend Gibson and Fender. Tokai fans will defend Tokai's.
That's very true.
Why didnt Tokai design their own guitars, like PRS, Gretsch, etc. Respectable and ORIGINAL guitar makers.
They do. The Tokai Talbo has always been one of my all time design favourites (alongside the like of Steinberger, Parker and Klein).
I've never read any thread on any forum where people were debating if a PRS or a Gretsch is a fake Gibson or Fender.
You weren't around when Big G were suing PRS over the Singlecut then?
Look, the whole question was are Tokais counterfeits or not. That has already been answered.
What few seem to realise is that Gibson are in the process of trying to shut Tokai's distribution down and getting a favourable ruling, stating that the LP, 335 and other body shapes are copyrighted or trademarked in SA will affect the distribution of
every LP-alike in the country and will likely be used to spearhead getting similar rulings globally (which they have already failed at before - they are just trying to do an end run around it this time). And then G will be the only company free to manufacture guitars anything like those models, charge whatever they want for them.
And sorry, but they gave up that right by never copyrighting the designs in the first place (even if they had, I think they would have expired by now), and allowing other manufacturers to build those shapes over the last 5 decades. The
legal facts is that by not copyrighting the design and not defending said copyright against imitators, they lost the right to do so now.
The simple fact is, they know they cannot compete unless they have a monopoly, and given their recent history and "like it or lump it" attitude to consumers, a monopoly would the worst possible thing as far as we consumers go. You don't see Fender, with their thousands of imitators struggling do you?
I don't even like Les Pauls or 335s myself, but I'd be stupid not to see that allowing G to get away with this latest dick move would be a bad thing for the industry.
