#16
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Because I am non-denominational in both religion and politics, at least as far as the public is concerned, I have seen the influence of my work in many places, among those the burgeoning Chinese hand builder world. Even in China, however, there appears a code of ethics which precludes the direct copying of a single builder's work, after all, it takes similar dedication to go your own way in either place, and there is great breadth available in our palette. The closest thing I've seen to a Chinese copy of my work was more conceptual than specific. However the fact the the non-English speaking luthier had seen my work in China, and went out of his way to bring his work to my shop was pretty much a straight up acknowledgement. He is going to be my guide while I am in China, and I expect to meet many of my counterparts while I am there. There are always the major manufacturers, of course, but they are far more likely to copy the bigger and better known players in our market. I suspect that if they did choose to copy me directly (hopefully not my logo) it would do me more good than harm.
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#17
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They do seem to go after the big names, usually electric guitar models, over acoustic guitars. The "lawsuit" era is far from over, unfortunately. I am aware of this from my involvement with Rickenbacker instruments; most of the copies are pretty awful looking, and shouldn't fool most folks, but the discussions on the Rick related sites I frequent do indicate that people are, indeed, being fooled, occasionally. We do our best to get the word out on these fakes.
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#18
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Here is a clip of the latest artifact played over my JB-00-P.
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#19
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As often happens when I have new instruments in the shop, I am spending more time playing that building right now. Knowing that the last tune is being played very slowly by bluegrass standards, I have been working on getting it up to speed. I have never been a particularly fast flatpicker, but here is where I have gotten so far. PLEASE remind me of the name of this tune. Both tracks (rhythm and melody) are entirely flat and are the same guitar, my FT-15-Artifact strung yesterday morning.
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