The legal dispute between Thomann and Fender over the shape of the Stratocaster is one of the many negative consequences of the virtualisation of reality caused by the ‘everything digital’ philosophy by Andrea Monti – Originally published in Italian by Italian Tech – La Repubblica
On 22 June 2026, Thomann, Europe’s largest music shop, announced that it was taking legal action against Fender Musical Instrument Corporation, the American manufacturer of electric guitars such as the Stratocaster and the Telecaster, used by some of the greatest musicians in history, including Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore, Mark Knopfler, Prince, Eric Clapton and Bruce Springsteen.
The substance of the dispute seems light years away from the world of technology: Fender has brought legal action against a Chinese manufacturer that was exporting instruments to Germany with the same shape as the Stratocaster. On 22 December 2025, a German court ruled in Fender’s favour (albeit in the absence of the opposing party, and therefore without a hearing), and, buoyed by the verdict, Fender sent several cease-and-desist letters to other parties, including Thomann.
Thomann, for its part, decided to take pre-emptive action to protect its own ‘Harley Benton’ brand – which also includes guitars modelled on Fender designs – on the grounds that the characteristics of the Stratocaster are essentially in the public domain and therefore reusable. This has been the case for decades, not in the counterfeit market but amongst reputable manufacturers producing high-quality instruments inspired by the American brand, which have even improved upon its original features.
This is certainly a legal dispute concerning industrial design, but in reality it has a deeper significance, which transcends this particular case and calls for a broader reflection on how the digital age is changing the way we experience the world.
Why protect the shape and not the sound
Let us look beyond this specific case and ask ourselves why Fender might have decided to protect the shape of the guitar not as the efficient result of an engineering process but in terms of its aesthetic aspect, given that, all things considered, this is the aspect that matters least to a musician. In a guitar, aesthetics are indeed important, but what matters first and foremost is how it ‘feels in the hand’ and how it sounds — once again, ‘how it is made’. So much so that activities such as changing the pickups, replacing the bridge, shaping the fingerboard and replacing the neck are commonplace, precisely to achieve the custom tone — the personalised sound — or to imitate that of some famous musician.
Does the value of an instrument still lie in its sound?
So why not try to claim intellectual property rights over the sound of the Stratocaster’s single-coil pickups, which, incidentally, are what help define its acoustic identity?
Firstly, because sound, as such, is difficult to protect legally, especially in an electric guitar, given that amplifiers play a fundamental role in the overall result.
One, a hundred, a thousand instruments, and none of them
Secondly, because modelling the acoustic responses of guitars and amplifiers makes it possible to digitally reproduce any combination (just read, if you don’t believe me, what the Line 6 Variax 600 was capable of emulating several years ago). So there is less and less justification for spending money on a Stratocaster when, for much less, you can buy a replica that is not only well-built but, thanks to digital simulators, sounds practically the same.
This is a key step in the argument. To paraphrase the title of the iconic track by The Buggles, one could say that digital killed the guitar sound . Which brings to mind the scene so admirably depicted in Crush!, the Apple advert released in 2024 to promote an iPad Pro. Without realising what they had done, Apple’s creatives depicted a massive press that literally crushed everything analogue in our lives: a record player, paints, a metronome, a piano, camera lenses – all transformed into an iPad, presented as the only digital tool we have — would have — need.
Without sound, form is empty
In the same way, digitalisation has stifled the voice of musical instruments and rendered them fungible, if not indistinguishable, because it has shifted their value from the sound they produce to an empty form.
Unlike Bruno Munari’s immortal creations, in fact, the instrument’s form is no longer functional in relation to its original purpose — producing a distinctive sound — but matters solely for the creation of economic value through the object’s aesthetics.
Reconnecting with reality
This may be fine if you’re making more or less realistic videos for a social network, but when it comes to playing for real, that’s when you see whether the instrument is used for how it looks or for what it enables you to do; provided, of course, that the musician has decided not to interpose, between themselves and reality, yet another veil of fiction made up of plugins, electronics, digital simulations and, more recently, AI as well.
In that case, bring it on – even in music, a good crash… is welcome