Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I've been away and I've come back to find the topic missing. I'm interested in knowing what caused it to
get pulled.

Yes I noticed it was yanked too. I have no idea what caused it to get pulled. I woke up the other day and it was gone.

I think this is best left un-explored. Suffice it to say it was contrary to the spirit of this great forum and no good was going to come from it. The cancellation was partially my fault but I can't take all of the blame.

Fair questions. Please see the discussion under the Rickenbacker Basses topic.

was this the what's on order thread?

No, it was a now deleted thread regarding the availability of horseshoe pickups.

I tried not to say anything wrong. Was it me?

No, I don't think so Jerry. It was just a whirlwind of nonsense that swept up several of us. Me included.

Same thing happened last week on the Fender page on a question about Carol Kaye.

What did you guys do? What did I miss?

Its been awhile, but If I remember correctly, there was an issue of specific RIC parts being discontinued. Particularly, the re-issue horseshoe pickup. Then someone came along with a non RIC replacement, people got crazy, the forum started choosing sides, Peter pulled the post to try to difuse the situation, and,,,basicaly JH got tired of trying to defend the company name and went home.

There may have been more to it than that, but thats my take on the situation.

He still comes back once in a while. But is missed as a full time contributer.

Sigh,,,,,its just like everything else in life, you dont know what you got until its gone.

Thanks for the info. I do remember seeing that series of posts. If RIC didn't have the replacement part was JH upset because others were advising on how to get a non-RIC part for replacement, or because he was being called to task by some?

Anyway, I hope he comes back. His input is one of the strengths of this forum.

Ric doesn't seem to want to sell spare parts ... and then they seem to shut down some of the people making spare parts ... Ric is concerned with their copyrights and trademarks ... but us end users are more concerned with getting parts ...

Unless a part is protected by a patent, it can be made. AFAIK they have no unexpired patents at present.

Of course, in making the part you can't violate a Rickenbacker trademark. You can make a six-pole Alnico pickup and wind it to 7.4Kohms using #44AWG. But you can't call it a toaster or toaster-top because those names belong to RIC. You can make a pickup cover for it, but you can't duplicate the toaster-top style cover because that is trademarked "trade dress". You can make an original style pickup with a horseshoe magnet, but you can't call it a "horseshoe pickup" because that name is trademarked by RIC.

I don't see how RIC is preventing anyone from getting parts or shutting anyone down other than people who violate their trademarks.

Dave, has RIC in fact trademarked the name "horseshoe pickup?" I wouldn't think you can trademark something that basically describes what type of pickup it is. That would be like trying to trademark "humbucking pickup" or something....although if they haven't already, I wouldn't put it past Gibson to try.