https://kstp.com/news/pri...g7RCjaBsbM

The guy owns the trademark. I don't see how the Estate has a leg to stand on.

The Estate is getting desperate, that's not a good sign. Things might be going down hill for them.

[Edited 12/4/18 18:12pm]

[Edited 12/4/18 19:04pm]

PennyPurple said:

The guy owns the trademark. I don't see how the Estate has a leg to stand on.

The Estate is getting desperate, that's not a good sign. Things might be going down hill for them.

Exactly. If the estate was smart, they'd create a line of customs with the creator of the guitar. Everyone from Gene Simmons to Nikki Sixx has customs for sale.

It's not some cryptic sign of them not doing well. More likely it's an attempt to try and own everything that Prince ever touched or used as his original or a trademark item. It's simply ridiculous of them to go down this road.

Weird because a month ago Dave RUsan was named The Estate's official curator for Prince's guitars at Paisley Park.

jjam said:

Fuck the Estate. The cloud guitar design is based upon the design of a guitar that Todd Rundgren used anyway.

I think you're confusing the Ankh guiotr Rundren had and people said Prince's Symbol guitar was based on that (incorrectly). The cloud guitar was based on a bass guitar Prince had with a fat S logo on it.

I don't know how to play a guitar, nor can I afford to spend $8000 for one that I'd really love to have but Dave OWNS the trademark. Which means it belongs to him, to do with as he wants. Personally, I think the estate would be wise to work out some sort of Prince-related incentive option with him to enhance sales for a precentage. Maybe some rare, never, ever seen before video footage of Prince rehearsing with it, broken down into tutorial form with other "real musicians" narrating. Wins all around.

fucking idiots! The estates commercial lawyers are charging them millions & dropped the ball on this. Dave rightly took the initiative & the estae acted too late....idiots!

Fact is that this design was NOT Prince's original, in fact if anyone should own it it should be Andre Cymone who alerted P to it in the 1st place!

Minneapolis luthier Dave Rusan holds the very first Cloud guitar built for Prince in 1983. Rusan is standing by his bench in Knut-Koupée Music, the guitar repair shop he worked at that Prince frequented and commissioned to build a one-of-a-kind axe for the film Purple Rain.

https://www.premierguitar...oud-guitar

On a blustery Sunday night in New York City’s Times Square, the mood is bittersweet as devoted fans flock to a special weekend screening of Purple Rain. While many here are still trying to come unstuck from the notion of a world without Prince tearing up a stage or dropping another uniquely multihued album, there’s also a sizzle of expectation in the air, almost as though a full-blown concert, and not just a movie, is about to jump off.

After all, this was the film that, more than 30 years ago (in the summer of ’84), established Prince, playing a character known simply as the Kid, as an explosive musical talent to be reckoned with. Maybe his acting chops didn’t quite set the world on fire, but that’s yet another of the saving graces of Purple Rain; as campy as the film is, the story it tells is straight-ahead, timeless, romantic, and familiar. Sacrificing himself for his art, the Kid fights through family strife, ridicule (from his rivals Morris Day and the Time), and his own demons to realize his lifelong dream. And naturally, he gets the girl in the end.

One scene in particular sends a knowing murmur through the theater crowd. The Kid is wooing his love interest, Apollonia, when he stops in front of a shop window to admire a guitar. “Do you see something you like?” she asks him. He answers only “Let’s go,” and the camera cuts and pans slowly over Apollonia’s shoulder to reveal a white, curvy, alien-looking axe, slung upside-down (for a lefty—like Jimi Hendrix, let’s say) from a black mannequin’s neck. It’s foreshadowing that hits you over the head, but the statement is clear: This is the Kid’s totem, the staff of Moses, his ticket to the big time. And one day soon, it’ll be his to play.

“That’s what a guitar is really, at least in the rock world,” says Dave Rusan, the original builder of what would become known in Prince-ly lore as the Cloud guitar—one of four he made in the mid-’80s. “It’s so much more than just part of a costume. It’s a means of expression, power, identity, you name it. And honestly, I didn’t know how it was going to be portrayed in the movie, because we didn’t have any hints of a plot line or the script or anything. But when I first saw it, I remember thinking, ‘Oh wow—there it is!’ I was quite surprised.”

At the time, Rusan lived and worked in Minneapolis doing repairs at Knut-Koupée Music, the hip Uptown store cofounded by a local guitarist named Jeff Hill. Prince started coming in when he was still in high school, and by the late ’70s, after he’d signed to Warner Bros., he was a regular customer. Rusan remembers first hearing about Prince through David Z, who produced some of his early demos.

“One day David walked in with a boom box with a cassette in it, which was how you listened to stuff on the fly back then. He just came into the store and put it up on the counter and played it. After a while we went, ‘God, who’s this band? They’re great—they sound just like Earth, Wind & Fire!’ And he said, ‘This is one guy. This is Prince.’”

By the middle of ’83, Prince’s album 1999 had put him on the map with the hits “Little Red Corvette” and “Delirious.” Word started circulating that he had even bigger plans for his next project. “I’d been in London working at another shop for about nine months,” Rusan recalls. “When I came back, there was Prince up at the counter. He and Jeff went into the back office and they talked a long time, and then Jeff came down and told me, ‘Prince is going to make a movie. He needs a guitar, and you’re going to make it.’ And I was like, wow. I didn’t see that coming. He’d already had some success, and had a few albums out, but not too many people made movies until they were much bigger—like Elvis, you know?”

Prince told Hill he needed a fully functioning instrument, but with an unusual design that he wanted to swipe from a bass once owned by André Cymone, Prince’s childhood friend and former bass player. “We were recording his first album [For You] at the Record Plant in Sausalito,” Cymone remembers. “We had a day off, so we just got in the car and drove. I spotted a shop in San Rafael, we popped in, and I saw the bass. I played it and fell in love, but I didn’t have the cash at the time, so I asked Prince to buy it and he did. I’m not completely sure who the maker was—I haven’t seen it since I left the band. I was pretty surprised when I saw him playing a guitar version. I’d never seen anything like that before.”

What a waste of money. Billable hours are racking up. The question is who requested to pursue this litiagation. The heirs aren't in control yet. Any lawyer would know this was a waste of time.

http://cloudguitarcentral.blogspot.com/2010/07/origins.html

Not a good move by the Estate.

They would benefit more so by making a deal with him, to sell his guitars via Paisley Park and the website.

could this all be more scams for lawyers to make EVEN MORE money?

rogifan said:

If he owns the trademark how can they stop him?

From that snippet it sounds like they are pressuring certain people not to sell it and are trying to pressure David into giving up the trademark. I don't see it going to court but it could.

PennyPurple said:

The guy owns the trademark. I don't see how the Estate has a leg to stand on.

The Estate is getting desperate, that's not a good sign. Things might be going down hill for them.

[Edited 12/4/18 18:12pm]

[Edited 12/4/18 19:04pm]

Just because a trademark is approved by the USPTO doesn't mean it will hold up as valid. They make plenty of mistakes. We sell printed apparel and run into this issue all of the time. We have people copy our products, file trademarks on their copies, then claim we are in violation of their trademark. They never win.

In this specific case it is odd that he filed for a trademarke this year for a guitar that has been associated with Prince for decades. The terms of the work for the original guitar are going to be important.

And the estate cares because they were selling cloud guitars.

jmfd said:

Not a good move by the Estate.

They would benefit more so by making a deal with him, to sell his guitars via Paisley Park and the website.

They were selling cloud guitars before this guy got his trademark in Febuary.

He filed once in 2016 and was denied, he filed again in 2017, that one went through, now he's trying to trademark the term "Could Guitar"

"Custom-made handcrafted guitars, specifically exact reproductions of the guitar made for and used by the artist known as Prince." is what he said in that appplication. it's very unlikely taht one gets approved.

OldFriends4Sale said:

http://cloudguitarcentral.blogspot.com/2010/07/origins.html

So prince (or his band) had a cloud guitar since at least 1980? So the told the guy "can you make me one in white" and only after Prince died did he try to trademark the design.

[Edited 12/5/18 21:49pm]

alandail said:

So prince (or his band) had a cloud guitar since at least 1980? So the told the guy "can you make me one in white" and only after Prince died did he try to trademark the design.

He can't trademark it, he didn't create it. I mean, he could have been a dick and tried to, but he didn't. He has every right to trademark it because the demand goes up and it protects his intellectual property. For the estate to step in and tell him not to keep creating what he created is absurd on every level - morally, business.

The bass was around since 1979. Andre saw it in a music shop and loved it. He asked Prince to buy it for him, which he did. Andre is playing it in the "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad" video. Yet we rarely saw it after that. Sonny played the bass in the "My Name is Prince" video.

TrivialPursuit said:

alandail said:

So prince (or his band) had a cloud guitar since at least 1980? So the told the guy "can you make me one in white" and only after Prince died did he try to trademark the design.

He can't trademark it, he didn't create it. I mean, he could have been a dick and tried to, but he didn't. He has every right to trademark it because the demand goes up and it protects his intellectual property. For the estate to step in and tell him not to keep creating what he created is absurd on every level - morally, business.

The bass was around since 1979. Andre saw it in a music shop and loved it. He asked Prince to buy it for him, which he did. Andre is playing it in the "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad" video. Yet we rarely saw it after that. Sonny played the bass in the "My Name is Prince" video.

I don't follow your post.

Teh image shows design for the guitar predates Dave Rusan. Dave Rusan's trademark application says he created the design for the guitar ini 1983. The video shows the design existed and was used in Prince's band at least 3 years before that.

If Prince hires Dave Rusan to make him a guitar and gives him the design of what it should look like, Dave Rusan can'd turn around and claim rights to that design. His own trademark application says "Custom-made handcrafted guitars, specifically exact reproductions of the guitar made for and used by the artist known as Prince."

Unless he can prove otherwise, Prince hired him to make a guitar and told him what it should look like. Today not just Dave Rusan, but many otehr people, are making cloud guitars and selling them as Prince guitars.

What really should happen is the estate should get the trademark, again be able to sell the guitars they were selling, give Dave Rusan a free license to continue selling what he's selling, and shut down everyone else who is out there making and selling them as Prince guitars. They shouldnt' be able to use or imply that it's a Prince product. The estate owns those rights.

alandail said:

I don't follow your post.

Teh image shows design for the guitar predates Dave Rusan. Dave Rusan's trademark application says he created the design for the guitar ini 1983. The video shows the design existed and was used in Prince's band at least 3 years before that.

If Prince hires Dave Rusan to make him a guitar and gives him the design of what it should look like, Dave Rusan can'd turn around and claim rights to that design. His own trademark application says "Custom-made handcrafted guitars, specifically exact reproductions of the guitar made for and used by the artist known as Prince."

Unless he can prove otherwise, Prince hired him to make a guitar and told him what it should look like. Today not just Dave Rusan, but many otehr people, are making cloud guitars and selling them as Prince guitars.

What really should happen is the estate should get the trademark, again be able to sell the guitars they were selling, give Dave Rusan a free license to continue selling what he's selling, and shut down everyone else who is out there making and selling them as Prince guitars. They shouldnt' be able to use or imply that it's a Prince product. The estate owns those rights.

You clearly don't understand trademark law or a licensing. If Prince can trademark the PurpleAxe (or MJ trademarking the technology behind the "Smooth Criminal" lift & shoes), then he could have trademarked the cloud guitar - having used the latter 100x more than the former - if he created it. He didn't. Just because he solicited someone to create something doesn't, by default, give Prince the rights to the trademark of the creation. We don't know (or do we?) that Rusan didn't create that bass design. If he did, then he even more owns the rights to it by default. Hell, copyright law even states that the moment you put pen to paper and create something (as in writing or music, etc) that it's your copyright. The moment of inception is your copyright; you obviously follow that with proper paperwork etc. We don't know that Prince gave specifics on the guitar. He could have said, "Make it look like that bass" and would still be between Rusan and whoever created that bass (if it wasn't him).

The estate has no claim to the trademark. What should happen is Rusan's trademark stay in place (he applied for it first anyway, regardless), and he can then license it to the estate for a fee. The estate should pay him. He can't be robbed of his work, which surprises me that Prince fans argue for that instead of against it. It's not a Prince product, no more than the typhoon hairstyle is, or a big spotlight in front of the kick drum. Anyone can reference Prince if they worked for him. Steve Parke, Stacia Lang, Sam Jennings - all these people did work for Prince, but they still have a right to their work on some level. A photographer owns the photograph he takes, or the art he designs. Granted, the final product is something Prince uses and owns in a way that he paid the artist for their work. Prince fans are advocating robbing Rusan for his work. It's ridiculous and short-sighted. Remove the purple-tinted glasses. Dis a bid'ness. Y'all ain't too far gone to see that yet.

Why? He is the created of guitars. If Prince had chose that sytle bak in the mid '80's foe the movie Purple Rain. Then in actuality; the creator is the owner of the cloud guitars'

TrivialPursuit said:

alandail said:

I don't follow your post.

Teh image shows design for the guitar predates Dave Rusan. Dave Rusan's trademark application says he created the design for the guitar ini 1983. The video shows the design existed and was used in Prince's band at least 3 years before that.

If Prince hires Dave Rusan to make him a guitar and gives him the design of what it should look like, Dave Rusan can'd turn around and claim rights to that design. His own trademark application says "Custom-made handcrafted guitars, specifically exact reproductions of the guitar made for and used by the artist known as Prince."

Unless he can prove otherwise, Prince hired him to make a guitar and told him what it should look like. Today not just Dave Rusan, but many otehr people, are making cloud guitars and selling them as Prince guitars.

What really should happen is the estate should get the trademark, again be able to sell the guitars they were selling, give Dave Rusan a free license to continue selling what he's selling, and shut down everyone else who is out there making and selling them as Prince guitars. They shouldnt' be able to use or imply that it's a Prince product. The estate owns those rights.

You clearly don't understand trademark law or a licensing. If Prince can trademark the PurpleAxe (or MJ trademarking the technology behind the "Smooth Criminal" lift & shoes), then he could have trademarked the cloud guitar - having used the latter 100x more than the former - if he created it. He didn't. Just because he solicited someone to create something doesn't, by default, give Prince the rights to the trademark of the creation. We don't know (or do we?) that Rusan didn't create that bass design. If he did, then he even more owns the rights to it by default. Hell, copyright law even states that the moment you put pen to paper and create something (as in writing or music, etc) that it's your copyright. The moment of inception is your copyright; you obviously follow that with proper paperwork etc. We don't know that Prince gave specifics on the guitar. He could have said, "Make it look like that bass" and would still be between Rusan and whoever created that bass (if it wasn't him).

The estate has no claim to the trademark. What should happen is Rusan's trademark stay in place (he applied for it first anyway, regardless), and he can then license it to the estate for a fee. The estate should pay him. He can't be robbed of his work, which surprises me that Prince fans argue for that instead of against it. It's not a Prince product, no more than the typhoon hairstyle is, or a big spotlight in front of the kick drum. Anyone can reference Prince if they worked for him. Steve Parke, Stacia Lang, Sam Jennings - all these people did work for Prince, but they still have a right to their work on some level. A photographer owns the photograph he takes, or the art he designs. Granted, the final product is something Prince uses and owns in a way that he paid the artist for their work. Prince fans are advocating robbing Rusan for his work. It's ridiculous and short-sighted. Remove the purple-tinted glasses. Dis a bid'ness. Y'all ain't too far gone to see that yet.

We know from the trademark application that Rusan didn't create the bass design. HIs trademark application has first use date of the design.

ANd the whole point of my posts is we don't know, so we can't just assume Rusan designed it independently, espscially since the bass is prior art. People are ripping the estate in this thread.

alandail said:

TrivialPursuit said:

You clearly don't understand trademark law or a licensing. If Prince can trademark the PurpleAxe (or MJ trademarking the technology behind the "Smooth Criminal" lift & shoes), then he could have trademarked the cloud guitar - having used the latter 100x more than the former - if he created it. He didn't. Just because he solicited someone to create something doesn't, by default, give Prince the rights to the trademark of the creation. We don't know (or do we?) that Rusan didn't create that bass design. If he did, then he even more owns the rights to it by default. Hell, copyright law even states that the moment you put pen to paper and create something (as in writing or music, etc) that it's your copyright. The moment of inception is your copyright; you obviously follow that with proper paperwork etc. We don't know that Prince gave specifics on the guitar. He could have said, "Make it look like that bass" and would still be between Rusan and whoever created that bass (if it wasn't him).

The estate has no claim to the trademark. What should happen is Rusan's trademark stay in place (he applied for it first anyway, regardless), and he can then license it to the estate for a fee. The estate should pay him. He can't be robbed of his work, which surprises me that Prince fans argue for that instead of against it. It's not a Prince product, no more than the typhoon hairstyle is, or a big spotlight in front of the kick drum. Anyone can reference Prince if they worked for him. Steve Parke, Stacia Lang, Sam Jennings - all these people did work for Prince, but they still have a right to their work on some level. A photographer owns the photograph he takes, or the art he designs. Granted, the final product is something Prince uses and owns in a way that he paid the artist for their work. Prince fans are advocating robbing Rusan for his work. It's ridiculous and short-sighted. Remove the purple-tinted glasses. Dis a bid'ness. Y'all ain't too far gone to see that yet.

We know from the trademark application that Rusan didn't create the bass design. HIs trademark application has first use date of the design.

ANd the whole point of my posts is we don't know, so we can't just assume Rusan designed it independently, espscially since the bass is prior art. People are ripping the estate in this thread.

The Estate should be ripped. They should be worried about keeping afloat instead of going after this guy. That isn't P's design, what gives them the right?

TrivialPursuit said:

We don't know (or do we?) that Rusan didn't create that bass design. If he did, then he even more owns the rights to it by default.

He could have said, "Make it look like that bass" and would still be between Rusan and whoever created that bass (if it wasn't him).

Everybody knows the bass was built by Jeff Levin (who created the "Sardonyx" and that "Cloud bass" is probably also called "Sardonyx"...) and that he sold them at the Manhattan guitar shop he worked at... Prince just asked Rusan to build him a guitar version...

Neversin.

alandail said:

TrivialPursuit said:

You clearly don't understand trademark law or a licensing. If Prince can trademark the PurpleAxe (or MJ trademarking the technology behind the "Smooth Criminal" lift & shoes), then he could have trademarked the cloud guitar - having used the latter 100x more than the former - if he created it. He didn't. Just because he solicited someone to create something doesn't, by default, give Prince the rights to the trademark of the creation. We don't know (or do we?) that Rusan didn't create that bass design. If he did, then he even more owns the rights to it by default. Hell, copyright law even states that the moment you put pen to paper and create something (as in writing or music, etc) that it's your copyright. The moment of inception is your copyright; you obviously follow that with proper paperwork etc. We don't know that Prince gave specifics on the guitar. He could have said, "Make it look like that bass" and would still be between Rusan and whoever created that bass (if it wasn't him).

The estate has no claim to the trademark. What should happen is Rusan's trademark stay in place (he applied for it first anyway, regardless), and he can then license it to the estate for a fee. The estate should pay him. He can't be robbed of his work, which surprises me that Prince fans argue for that instead of against it. It's not a Prince product, no more than the typhoon hairstyle is, or a big spotlight in front of the kick drum. Anyone can reference Prince if they worked for him. Steve Parke, Stacia Lang, Sam Jennings - all these people did work for Prince, but they still have a right to their work on some level. A photographer owns the photograph he takes, or the art he designs. Granted, the final product is something Prince uses and owns in a way that he paid the artist for their work. Prince fans are advocating robbing Rusan for his work. It's ridiculous and short-sighted. Remove the purple-tinted glasses. Dis a bid'ness. Y'all ain't too far gone to see that yet.

We know from the trademark application that Rusan didn't create the bass design. HIs trademark application has first use date of the design.

ANd the whole point of my posts is we don't know, so we can't just assume Rusan designed it independently, espscially since the bass is prior art. People are ripping the estate in this thread.

The estate should be ripped for shit like this.
They should focus on the music from the vault instead of fighting these 'wars'.

Neversin said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Everybody knows the bass was built by Jeff Levin (who created the "Sardonyx" and that "Cloud bass" is probably also called "Sardonyx"...) and that he sold them at the Manhattan guitar shop he worked at... Prince just asked Rusan to build him a guitar version...

Neversin.

WTF?! I did some pretty extensive research over at least a decade on his Cloud guitar and this bass guiatr and this is the first time I ever heard this! I don't even think Andre Cymone or Dave Rusan knows this info.

Neversin said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Everybody knows the bass was built by Jeff Levin (who created the "Sardonyx" and that "Cloud bass" is probably also called "Sardonyx"...) and that he sold them at the Manhattan guitar shop he worked at... Prince just asked Rusan to build him a guitar version...

Neversin.

Well, no not everyone knows that, but that is true. It could be argued that Levin owns the bass design (from the late 70's, who even knows if he's alive or a company is around to claim it) and that Rusan owns the guitar version (which is arguably a bit more detailed and ornate).

I'm still erring on the side of Rusan on the whole thing. It seems petty & greedy of the estate to do this shit.