When is a Steinway still a Steinway

[John Musselwhite]

At 10:43 AM 18/11/02 -0600, Dave wrote:

>Has Ford ever sued someone for customizing, souping up, and
>personalizing their Ford?

Non sequitur, Dave. Steinways are not Fords and pianos are not cars or 
violins. The world of automotive planned obsolescence is very different 
from the concert stage or music room. "Souping up" cars is traditional and 
in things like stock car racing a vehicle may carry a maker's badge even if 
it doesn't really have any of their parts on it. There is no ambiguity 
because it is what people expect. Automakers even encourage it to some 
degree because it may mean you'll buy a new car sooner.

However, let's say someone is buying old Rolls Royce bodies and somehow 
sticking them on Ford chassis and is selling them as "Rolls Royce" 
automobiles. You can bet there will be lawsuits flying all over the place. 
Even in the case of "replicars" they have to be careful to make them 
dissimilar enough to get around any trademark infringements.

The Steinway situation under discussion seems to be the opposite in that 
since people often buy pianos "for life" the factory wants you to make them 
similar enough in a rebuild to keep their trademarks intact. The issue 
doesn't seem to be as much about what you do to the piano, just how you use 
the trademark. By my reading they even give you permission to continue 
using their trademark if you choose to do something different as long as 
you document what you did on the instrument. While some people might 
consider this to be heavy-handed there is the potential for a lot of fraud 
out there that must be addressed, and this is one way to do it.

>I have a "B" for sale now that has all Renner action parts, a
>non-Steinway sounding board
>and I'm not concerned about a lawsuit.  I
>have made a list of everything that is in the piano that I will pass
>on to the buyer so that there will be no doubt as to what is actually
>in the instrument.

Here is my take on this whole issue.  If the work involves refinements or 
renewal of the original structure such as replacing key pins and bushings, 
moving bridges slightly or shaping replacement ribs a little differently to 
fit an individual instrument better then it's still being faithful to the 
original "standard". Major deviations from "standard" should be permanently 
documented in the piano somewhere.

The crux of the matter is that Steinway has issued an official policy as 
regards their trademarks which courts have to take into account if it comes 
up for any reason. From what I understand it's there more as a statement on 
record to help legally protect the value of their name and trademarks than 
as a way to prevent serious technicians from altering or improving the 
instruments. If they don't defend their trademarks every way they can, who 
will?

In a later message Robert Goodale mentioned:

>If a technician installs Able hammers on a Steinway at the owner request 
>does this void the warranty?  Probably not.

It probably would unless permission was sought from the factory beforehand. 
Factories can be sticky about the use of any non-authorized parts during 
the warranty period regardless of what they build.

>Without regard to this if the sound board develops a crack six months 
>later is Steinway still obligated to fix it?

I can't speak for them but unless their policy has changed in the last few 
years there is no warranty on the board at all insofar as cracks are 
concerned. Steinway at one time even put out a pamphlet explaining that 
cracks and compression ridges were not unusual and were of little concern. 
There was a big stink about this years ago, but I don't remember how or if 
it was resolved.

>2.  German Steinways use Rennor actions already.

They use Steinway actions with Renner parts hung on them. There's a big 
difference. Changing out NY parts for Renners isn't really a major change 
in the execution of the design, though it may affect the warranty if it's 
within the first five years. Changing the whole action out to a Renner 
style might be considered to be major though since the tubular action is so 
much a part of what a Steinway is. In that case it would be a "Steinway 
with a Renner action" rather than a "Steinway".

>Just because a different technician installed it and used a different 
>table saw to cut the ribs, does this mean the piano is no longer a Steinway?

Not to me at least, but if that different technician redesigns the board 
with a totally different rib layout and perhaps adds a Wapin(tm) bridge and 
rescales it to boot then it is radically different from Steinway's 
intention. It may be a better piano afterwards, but it goes into the 
territory of trademark infringement since some of the things that 
originally made the piano a "Steinway" are no longer there. Steinway can't 
stop someone from doing that, but they should be within their legal rights 
to prevent that technician from using the Steinway trademark against their 
wishes.

So for what it's worth, my answer to the question of when is a Steinway 
still a Steinway is that if there is little or no trademark infringement in 
a quality rebuild regardless of whether all the replacement parts come out 
of a Steinway box then it's still a Steinway. Remove, degrade or 
significantly alter the designs and it becomes less of a Steinway and more 
something else. If that is the case and you wish to continue to use their 
trademark you're apparently obliged to play by their rules and document it 
on the instrument somewhere, a practice I would encourage people to adopt 
anyway.

Of course, that is just my opinion as an interested observer.

                 John

John Musselwhite, RPT    -     Calgary, Alberta Canada
http://www.musselwhite.com  http://canadianpianopage.com/calgary
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