Gibson got raided again today by the Feds

[Dave W]

More reporting and opinion from here and there:

The Music Salon

Cato@Liberty

Nashville Business Journal

The Atlantic Wire

Fretboard Journal

[Dave W]

Another WSJ story with a few more details about the wood and what "finished" might mean.

If the boards were any more "finished" than that, I wonder if it could possibly disqualify the guitars from being called "Made in USA" under the FTC's standards.

[Freuds_Cat]

Another WSJ story with a few more details about the wood and what "finished" might mean.

If the boards were any more "finished" than that, I wonder if it could possibly disqualify the guitars from being called "Made in USA" under the FTC's standards.

From the above link:

Scott Paul, a Greenpeace official in New York responsible for forestry issues, said Gibson for years has done "great work" to promote better forestry practices. The question, he said, is whether Gibson did everything possible to avoid buying wood from dubious sources. "We have no idea," he said.

[uwe]

"Doing everything possible to avoid ..." is the catchphrase of modern day corporate compliance, like it or not. You won't believe how often I hear "we didn't know and it wasn't immediately apparent". No, not immediately, but if you had dug deeper it would. And companies today are expected to dig so much deeper than, say, 10 years ago. We live in the age of compliance.

Markets are markets and compliant behavior inevitably costs money. So if someone offers you "legal wood" at a cheaper price than other market participants can, that should already set off your alarm bells. There is no free lunch, certainly not in India. So what could have Gibson done that perhaps they didn't do? Regular control visits to their wood source, review of legal situation by outside counsel, direct contact to Indian authorities. And if the Indians had refused that? Easy. Change source. If they did all that, then indeed they are innocent. Did they?

And of course they could have passed the extra cost on to the market. Do you think that Gibson guitars that cost a hundred bucks more but feature a tag "Gibson stamp of eco-certification - only ebony and rosewood from Gibson-checked Indian providers was used to build this guitar, learn more at www.where-we-get-our-wood-from-at-Gibson.com" would sell less?  

And don't tell me that is asking too much, if you work by necessity with a product that is toughly regulated, then you have to keep on your toes about it if you are not a mom & pop store without the necessary means. Foodstuff industries (have to) do it all the time.

[dadagoboi]

Very well said, Uwe.

[Freuds_Cat]

Foodstuff industries (have to) do it all the time.

Man dont I know it! Even pet food gets tightly regulated by Dept of primary industries here.

[Denis]

Uwe, I work for a very well known German company producing products regulated by our EPA. We are required to post the country of origin on our packaging for these products. If the active ingredient come from Germany (or India or France, etc) is .05% with other ingredients comprising the remaining 99.95%, we are required to list the country of origin as Germany, even if the 99.95% other ingredients AND the bottles AND all the other packaging comes from the US.

I don't know if finished or semi finishing fretboards would change the "Made in..." status of an guitar but it could be taken as far as someone wanted to take it.

[Dave W]

We don't know how far Gibson went to insure they were in compliance. I'm not going to assume they are at fault just because they were raided.

We don't know Indian law. We do know that there are US suppliers openly offering Indian rosewood fretboard blanks for sale to the public, one of them offering drop shipments of large quantities. So it seems that wood sawed into fretboard blanks must meet the "finished" requirement of Indian law, assuming that there actually is such a requirement.

This still smells like gross overkill to me.

[dadagoboi]

Might as well mention the Elephant in the room.  Henry is supposedly a Republican and anti Union guy.  The conspiracy theory is he's being persecuted by the Obama Justice Dept...not that it's ever been done by prior administrations to someone they didn't like.

It is strange if there is some sort of regulation that you can order a complete Indian Rosewood neck (including shaft) made to your exact specifications from Warmoth among others.

[uwe]

How do you avoid a 500 lbs grizzly going overboard with you in its attack? By being very, very careful in your approach and not even provoking him. Injecting comments such as "this is really going overboard now" have proven to be relatively futile with these creatures once they have claws on you.

If Gibson had done any of the above things, I'm sure that would have initiated their press statement. Instead they argue lamely, "well, the Indian authorities never complained". As if. Nudge, nudge. And no, we don't know Indian law, but had Henry J. called me, I could have given him 10 high profile Indian law firms who could have checked all issues for him and told him whether it is safe to contract or not. It's called a legal opinion. (And if that opinion had been wrong, he would now have a nice insurance claim against the Indian law firm.) All he would have needed to do is pay them. That is a question of priorities and whether cheaper wood is more important to you than covering your butt effectively.

This is on my turf (for once) and there is no argument to the resident law firm partner: Gibson did not act professionally here measured against the standards international companies in developed economies have to observe in 2011. Simple as that. If they have a case to the contrary, I'd like to hear it rather than vague conspiracy theories



and how bad the government is all the time.  

[dadagoboi]

...If they have a case to the contrary, I'd like to hear it rather than vague conspiracy theories

and how bad the government is all the time. 

Yeah, but you don't live in the USA.  That's all we have time for here.  After all, fubawl season's starting!  Go Gators.

I was unaware of the DOJ vendetta until yesterday when a guy I had just met enlightened me as to the REAL reason for the raid.  Unfortunately the US does have a long history of such things.

[mc2NY]

Maybe the quality control was bad on the Gibby Mrs. O bought and Da Prez is pissed off he got a lemon?

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/29/michelle-obamas-gibson-guitar-gift/

Michelle Obama's Gibson Guitar Gift

[Dave W]

Here's Techdirt's take on it, including their views on unjustified seizure and forfeiture.

[Lightyear]

Yeah, but you don't live in the USA.  That's all we have time for here.  After all, fubawl season's starting!  Go Gators.

I was unaware of the DOJ vendetta until yesterday when a guy I had just met enlightened me as to the REAL reason for the raid.  Unfortunately the US does have a long history of such things.

The country is drowning in red ink and we spend money to go after Gibson and Roger Clemons?  Oh yeah, and let's shut down those heinous lemonade stands all the kids keep trying to open on local street corners as well - I am sure that those hoodlums are not in compliance of something  

[sniper]

the fretboard on my new bass is made of amalgamated genuine USA cow plop ... thats my story and i'm sticking to it!  

seriously, this could have a lot of repercusions on the industry