So what did Fender do exactly? In early-mid 2026, Servco, the owners of Fender, headed by CEO Edward "Bud" Cole, "won" a German lawsuit by default because they were suing one of those Chinese copy makers and they didn't show up to the settlement. Somehow, Fender seems to think that Germany is the ruler of the whole planet, and started sending Cease & Decist letters to all of the other companies making Strat-type guitars the world over, starting with tiny luthiers, and then proceeding to take on companies like Thomman Music and the biggest instrument maker in the world, the Japanese outfit called Yamaha (who coincidentally made my first guitar, a G245SII Classical).

Then, more recently, Bud Cole insulted gigging musicians by comparing us and calling us an "Analog A.I." (I might not be gigging now, but I'm highly considering it again because I NEEEEEEEED a fucking outlet for my rage on things like this and simliar). Artificial Intelligence is already under fire by just about everyone with more than one brain cell because it's ruining monetization of our creations by people like me - artists/musicians/content creators - by replacing us with "AI DataCenters" that are run by huge corporations, sucking up all the water, and all the electricity, and causing all sorts of logistical nightmares for civilian utilities - and it's very very possible these data centers could possibly be doubling as a way to provide George Orwellian level 1984-esque surveilliance and data collection on us to keep us compliant. Considering that this is all being run by multinational billionare Epstien class fucktards, I'm starting to become far more vocally antagonistic and anti-lamestream by the day these days. As if it isn't sad enough that every subgenre of music or alt-culture I liked is being turned into fucking gooner bait by twits and alt-in-vision only tradwives....but I digress...back to Fender.

So, this has resulted in Boycott and backlash against Fender, who won't be getting anymore of my money anyway (my last purchase was a CV Jaguar in 2025, before all this shit). They won't need to get my money anyhow, I BUILD Guitars myself. I already have a offset dual humbucker simliar to a certain Seattle Grunge Rocker's guitar on my garage wall I'm building, but with a Floyd Rose....and that guitar has cost me roughly 1/4th what it cost to buy a lower quality Squier product from a wall.

And that's another piece on this, It seems everyone's focused on the Fender mainline, but remember, Fender owns (ie SERVCO owns): Jackson, Charvel, EVH, Gretsch, Guild, Squier, and Starcaster branded products as well.

If we let Servco get away with this, then we are essentially letting what now has been over 50 years of normalcy of copy guitars - many of those body designs being catalysts for innovative designs - slip away in favor of a bunch of idiots in suits and ties with a collection of guitars they can't even fucking play well enough to know what Drop-D is let alone do a single-finger power chord in that tuning! And if we let the Stratocaster have this path, they'll come for the Tele next, then the Precision Bass, Jazz Bass, Jaguar, Jazzmaster, Mustang, hell, they might even snag Cobain's body design from the estate for all we know. So fuck em'. Either CEO change, or I'm not supporting your brand.

Personally, I've given a lot of money to Fender over the years using their guitars, some of their pedals, and even an amp or two here or there, and I know I mean nothing to them anyway because I'm just a regular joe local guitarist/composer who uses their products. But I have a conscience and I have ZERO problem hiding/concelaing/changing my guitars to read "Creepingnet" on the headstock. I even have model names prepared.

After all, just about every "fender" or "squier" I have has been taken fully apart by me, and tweaked/tuned/modified to MY specs in some way as a fast-track to what I wanted rather than just having to build a full instrument from scratch. I already have a full scratch Hondo Paul Dean clone in my garage, so making my own "Lynx" or "Panther" guitars is no problem. Nikki and Bettie are technically "Creepingnet" "Lynx GT" and "Panther SS" models anyway - and even then, they werent' built by Fender, the Jag-Stang was made by Fujigen in Japan, who goes by FGN or "FujiGen" in their home country, and the Jaguar was made by Dyna in Japan. My Squiers are all technicall "Cort" products, and even those have been taken apart and put together by me, usually with some kind of tonal benefit from it (go figure). I probably won't do it though because at the end of the day, does anyone really fucking care what's on a headstock anymore. See that and more in Nobody Cares Anymore.