Feds Want Gibson to Hand Over More Woods

[milod]

Aster...

 

valid point on humidity.

 

Also I think we have a problem in the definition of what constitutes "finished." Apparently the Indian government and everybody else is happy with the term "fingerboard blank" as being a "finished product." My understanding is that this is not at issue.

 

Another potential question as I read some of the documents is the term "veneer." At what thickness of wood is a fingerboard "veneer" and what thickness is it not? In furniture making this may or may not be important but... A fingerboard is in ways itself a veneer over a larger piece of wood of another species. But is the top on a Les Paul a "veneer?"

I dunno.

 

Bottom line to me is that if government agents want to force Gibson at minimum to spend a lotta money defending itself and trying to get the return of its own computers and fingerboard woods, it would be amazingly easy to do simply by using various circumlocutions to make the law sound one way even if litigation dumps it as ludicrous.

 

OTOH, if a judge chooses to go along with definitions as used by the prosecution, we've a criminal case that may or may not be very much precedent setting and therefore of major concern for the rest of us. My understanding is that if a judge rules that way, Gibson could be absolutely in the clear for knowing what happened, and still be charged; or alternatively did know but recognized imprecision in language in the law and took the risk.

 

The bottom line to me is that this stuff is at best, strange.

 

m

[Aster1]

 

Another potential question as I read some of the documents is the term "veneer." At what thickness of wood is a fingerboard "veneer" and what thickness is it not? In furniture making this may or may not be important but... A fingerboard is in ways itself a veneer over a larger piece of wood of another species. But is the top on a Les Paul a "veneer?"

I dunno.

m

 

That's a really good point as well. I can't find a definitive thickness for the term "veneer" even though most woodworkers recommend no thicker than 1/28" or there about. Again, spell this stuff out. For me and my business, I prefer that whatever I have to "abide by" just tell me "what I CAN'T do" and not what I can. I want to be able to presume that if I'm not doing a "can't" then I'm in the clear. That seems reasonable to me.

 

Aster

[milod]

Aster...

 

Yeah to all you said.

 

My problem with some of this is that in the old days unless something was expressly and in sufficient detail spelled out as a "no-no," it was okay. Culture and law nowadays seems to be so open to interpretation that we almost guarantee litigation so the case law is 98 percent of what we have to live with - and unless you're a lawyer, how're you going to figure all that out?

 

The law also allows such frivolity that there have been lawsuits naming dozens of defendants who may not have anything at all to do with the case, but will have to spend bundles in getting their names off the case. That, to me, is unconscionable.

 

m