ThatCanadianGuy
Where am I? D:
As the owner of said strandberg with crooked inlays, I'm actually surprised my build is so infamous. Whatever though, Ola did right by me. He even offered a rebuild despite meaning that would cost him more, I was the one who asked for a refund because the guitar played really well and I didn't want it gone for months.
Also, interesting points on IP. But I beg to differ. My thoughts are bracketed.
1. No logo. People who are aware of Ola and his work will know immediately that a Grote=/=.strandberg*. (No, people who know what a strandberg is but not knowledgeable enough to tell the differences will think this is a strandberg, straight up.)
2. Market differentiation. The people shelling out .strandberg* money will not even look twice at this. Hell, I absolutely love this guitar, but I know it doesn't stack up to Ola's creations. (There will be differentiation, but it also gives people the opportunity to get a cheaper, copied alternative instead of saving up for a real one and supporting Ola in the process)
3. Ola didn't invent headless guitars. He'll even say this himself, I'm sure. And the hardware isn't even remotely similar. It's all proprietary (or by another import company doing headless systems.) (Yes, but he did invent/design the boden shape, which is really the point of buying this over buying a copy of an ibanez voyager for example.)
4. The strat. Practically every guitar company has an iteration of such, and they all play and sound very differently. Hell, a lot of people still search for pre-lawsuit instruments from companies like ESP that have very blatantly ripped off the originals. (The only reason why the strat was copied so much was because laws were not put in place early enough to stem the spread of replica building and also something called the internet was not widely available for the original designers to pursue the copying quickly enough.)
In short, people are going to copy things. In fact, there are boutique custom luthiers making much more blatant .strandberg* copies that everyone loves. The stolen IP argument just doesn't make sense to me. (In short, people are going to copy things, yes. But copying is copying. Piracy is piracy, whatever way you look at it. How would people react if somebody recorded a song that sounded exactly like another well known song with some minor changes and called it their own? Don't get me wrong, spend your money whatever way you want to, just don't JUSTIFY copying.)
I respect that you have your own opinion as an owner of a .strandberg*. I simply feel differently.
