Copy or homage to another builder?

[Brian Evans]

I've been designing my upcoming nylon string archtop, and I have come up with an asymmetric body design. The problem is I just found out it's quite similar to the stunning guitars by Pagelli ( http://www.pagelli.com/e-guitars-archto ... ssari.html ). Mine will have different radius curves and a slightly asymmetric lower bout (like his other guitars), but the general shape is the very similar, particularly the cutaway. Is this an issue?

Brian

[Barry Daniels]

The common understanding is that body shapes are functional and cannot be a trade mark, unlike a headstock. And unless you plan on going into commercial production, making a one-off copy will not likely raise the ire of a company located in Europe.

[Beate Ritzert]

Mhmm, as soon as it comes to the art of design, things might change. My father - a painter - was not amused when he noticed someone closely imitating is style.
But as we do not know Your design it might be hard to find a definitive opinion.

After reading the Pagelli page i stumbled across the following paragraph:

Claudia has been part of Pagelli Guitars for many years. Without her natural gift to create beauty, my guitars would still look like they came from the stone-age. But today, they’ve influenced a generation of luthiers, and we’re proud to see our ideas in instruments built by others.

My feeling on such things: as long as it is your own design with some clearly visible influence by, e.g. the Pagellis (or someone else who has inspired You visibly), your formally on the safe side but a hommage to the creator of the idea might give it a nice touch.




A remark to headstocks: if these elements were fully protected no professional could build guitars without paying to some more or less obscure copyright holders. And did Gibson ever win their headstock case?

[David King]

Claudio is a very sweet guy and very approachable with a great sense of humor. Simply send him an email with a little explanation and see what he says. I see a little bit of several other builders in his designs so none of us are immune.

[Rodger Knox]

A remark to headstocks: if these elements were fully protected no professional could build guitars without paying to some more or less obscure copyright holders. And did Gibson ever win their headstock case?

Yes, they did, sometime in the late 70's I believe. Ibanez was ordered to cease coping the Gibson "open book" headstock, but by that time they had already switched to another headstock shape.

[Randolph Rhett]

I don't think anyone will think your guitar is a Pagelli, even if you copy exactly. Of course if you copy the logo and pretend its a Pagelli, that is a different matter.

As Beate said, it's just flattery for you to copy his guitars. Even if you literally trace it from a real Pagelli guitar. I can stand in the Met and copy a Picasso to my heart's content. As long as I don't pretend its a Picasso, no problem. It's not like you are building thousand of clones in China and calling them "Pig-elli's".

My first archtop was a complete COPY of a Benedetto Cremona. Don't think Benedetto minds in the least (especially since I paid him $30 for his book on how!).

[andrew yeager]

This a great article that speaks to the issue in an interesting way:
http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/the- ... influence/

[Bob Gramann]

Don't skip Andrew's article because it's too long. It is a tremendously clever and well done piece. Andrew, thank you for the link.