Guitar Center is launching its own guitar brand and asking guitarists for help with design – but the response hasn’t been all positive
Guitar Center has announced it is setting up its own in-house guitar brand, and is outsourcing a portion of research and development to its community of customers and players.
In a TikTok video posted on 26 March, CEO Gabe Dalporto shared the company’s plans to develop its own guitar brand, explaining his reasoning behind the move.
“We are about to do something insane,” he said. “We are going to build a revolutionary guitar and guitar brand from the ground up. Guitars haven’t changed that much in the last 50 years, and we’re about to change that.
“We have something that nobody else has: a relationship with you,” he continues. “Our customers are incredible musicians. And we’re going to work with you in public, out loud, and share our designs, take your feedback, iterate, and make the best guitar that has ever been made.”
@guitarcenter
It’s time to throw out the rule book and build a new guitar with no constraints, and you’re the designer! Follow @ gdalporto on Instagram to stay tuned in the guitar building journey, and join the subthread, r/GuitarLab, on Reddit to see the whole conversation unfold—link in bio. ——— By submitting your idea, design, suggestion or feedback (collectively, “Idea”), you affirm that your Idea is your original creation, and that any Idea submitted by you is wholly original and owned by you, and cleared for use by Guitar Center, Inc. (“Guitar Center”) without the need for additional licensing. By submitting your Idea, you assign, transfer, give and relinquish to Guitar Center all right, title and interest in and to the Idea or any material based upon or derived therefrom for no consideration. Guitar Center may use and exploit, without any payment or attribution obligation of any kind, any Idea you provide to Guitar Center. You waive any moral and similar rights you may have in such Idea. If requested by Guitar Center, you agree to execute and deliver all documents needed to confirm the assignment and transfer of your Idea to Guitar Center.
♬ original sound – Guitar Center – Guitar Center
A subreddit – r/guitarlab – has also been set up by Guitar Center to encourage its community to submit ideas for their ideal guitar, but a number of disclaimers have some guitarists sceptical about the whole idea, mostly around the concept of giving away ideas for free which will later be used for profit.
“Come build a guitar with us from the ground up,” Dalporto writes. “Your input will go directly to our builders as we iteratively create the world’s most revolutionary guitar from first principles (and your frustrations and desires). Be part of the biggest guitar innovation since Les Paul nailed a neck and pickups to a railroad tie.”
Under the r/guitarlab rules section, Guitar Center sets out three important disclaimers those submitting ideas for guitar design need to know:
“By submitting your idea, design, suggestion or feedback (collectively, “Idea”), you affirm that your Idea is your original creation, and that any Idea submitted by you is wholly original and owned by you, and cleared for use by Guitar Center, Inc. (“Guitar Center”) without the need for additional licensing,” reads the first.
But the second two stipulations are what have guitarists scratching their heads.
“By submitting your Idea, you assign, transfer, give and relinquish to Guitar Center all right, title and interest in and to the Idea or any material based upon or derived therefrom for no consideration,” reads the second rule. “Guitar Center may use and exploit, without any payment or attribution obligation of any kind, any Idea you provide to Guitar Center.”
And finally, the third rule: “You waive any moral and similar rights you may have in such Idea. If requested by Guitar Center, you agree to execute and deliver all documents needed to confirm the assignment and transfer of your Idea to Guitar Center.”
While some have enthusiastically taken to the cause, others have expressed their concern at the limited perks or remuneration community members will receive for their contributions.
In a post labelling the move “peak corporate cringe”, one user writes: “Am I the only one who finds it incredibly unnerved that a multi-billion dollar corporation, which has been struggling with its own identity and finances for years, is now asking us to do their R&D for free?”
Meanwhile, another user writes: “Seriously? you’re just going to rip ideas off your community and give them nothing but crappy trade in values?”
As it stands, Guitar Center hasn’t publicly responded to these concerns.
Keep up to date with the design via the official r/guitarlab subreddit.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
