More fakes on Ebay..

[Eric Rene Roy]

Amazing that you have to deal with this crap! I hope we never have to.

Actually we do....all my text and pictures too of our clef guts is being ripped off by some indian company and no matter how many eMails I write neither the company or eBay will remove the ads. Jeeze...go ask that indian company what PC even is in the text!

Anyway, sorry for the rant. Hope you have some lawyer bassists who can help you out!

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Eric Rene Roy

Amazing that you have to deal with this crap! I hope we never have to.

Actually we do....all my text and pictures too of our clef guts is being ripped off by some indian company and no matter how many eMails I write neither the company or eBay will remove the ads. Jeeze...go ask that indian company what PC even is in the text!

Anyway, sorry for the rant. Hope you have some lawyer bassists who can help you out!

Lawyer bassists? Well, counterfeiting is a federal crime. In the past with this same issue back in the Tx/Ok area I spoke with the FBI down there. Then it stopped for awhile. The 'Cash America' Pawn Shops had a few of these come thru. I suspect they would buy it from some individual and then market it. I spoke as well with their Legal Dept. It did stop a few years ago but now this one has just popped up. The Bass itself is not anything but a cheap Bass but it is using my name and one of my Model #s. It is the Name I am concerned about.

We also had some problem with a guy in Brazil trying to make Smith-looking knock-offs. I spoke with him directly. He joined both the TB forum and this one as well. He has since stopped and made his own design or at least doesn't copy me anymore.

Most people know enough to ask us before buying such an obvious non-Smith Bass with our name on it. Still, it takes time to chase things down and make sure no one falls victim to the Scam.

Hey, at least we are worth copying. That says something for success I heard. If only I could take to the Bank each act of flattery..

[Richard Hall]

Enlighten me on how the copyright thing works. I understand it is enfringement to put a manufacturers name on a guitar falsely. What about builders who make instruments that look similiar to a Ken Smith? We know there are a lot out there...

[Jo Dorn]

Over here ebay seems to react on complaints regarding fakes and copyright violation. I saw a few F...-copies beeing taken from the ebay-platform recently. It seems that on the German market only very few high-class instrument-fakes are offered, allthough there is a high amonut of 'vintage'-fakes concerning Les Paul guitars and Strats. Maybe the high-class brands like Ken Smith and Spector etc. aren't so well known to a larger amount of people over here, so copying isn't lucrative enough.