It’s not uncommon to see vintage guitar pedals listed online for considerable prices. But what about copies of vintage pedals? Well Behringer‘s Centaur Drive isn’t fake, per se; it was modelled after the legendary Klon Centaur overdrive pedal, and originally retailed for just $69. Now, in some cases, it’s going for prices similar to the original Klon. But why?
Well, it’s all due to a lawsuit filed by Bill Finnegan, creator of the original Klon Centaur, against Behringer’s parent company Music Tribe last month, in which he accused it of “blatant counterfeiting” over its Klon clone.
“I have filed a federal lawsuit against a well-known pedal manufacturer that is currently marketing and mass-producing a pedal that we believe blatantly infringes upon specific intellectual property owned by my company Klon LLC,” Finnegan wrote in an Instagram post.
Finnegan continued, “For the record, I have never been consulted in any way about this pedal, it has never been authorised by me, and I have never had any involvement whatsoever in its design, production, or marketing.”
As a result of the lawsuit and the possibility of Behringer’s Centaur Drive being discontinued, owners of the once affordable pedal are attempting to capitalise. We’ve seen listings on eBay for as much as £1,500 (approx. $2,014), while another, slightly more reasonable listing is priced at nearly 10 times the original at $500.
In its description, the latter listing reads, “Listings are getting taken down everywhere, so grab it before it disappears.”
In lawsuit court documents, “consumers expressed extensive actual confusion (that went deliberately unabated by Defendants), with many rushing to purchase Defendants’ counterfeit pedal believing Defendants are delivering on a mass scale a discounted product licensed or endorsed by Plaintiffs”.
The post $69 Behringer Klon clones are being spotted online for over $2,000 following Bill Finnegan lawsuit appeared first on MusicTech.
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