Gibson Guitars Being Investigated for Illegal Wood - General

[quote] Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson's chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company's manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. "The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier," he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle. It isn't the first time that agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service have come knocking at the storied maker of such iconic instruments as the Les Paul electric guitar, the J-160E acoustic-electric John Lennon played, and essential jazz-boxes such as Charlie Christian's ES-150. In 2009 the Feds seized several guitars and pallets of wood from a Gibson factory, and both sides have been wrangling over the goods in a case with the delightful name "United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms." The question in the first raid seemed to be whether Gibson had been buying illegally harvested hardwoods from protected forests, such as the Madagascar ebony that makes for such lovely fretboards. And if Gibson did knowingly import illegally harvested ebony from Madagascar, that wouldn't be a negligible offense. Peter Lowry, ebony and rosewood expert at the Missouri Botanical Garden, calls the Madagascar wood trade the "equivalent of Africa's blood diamonds." But with the new raid, the government seems to be questioning whether some wood sourced from India met every regulatory jot and tittle. It isn't just Gibson that is sweating. Musicians who play vintage guitars and other instruments made of environmentally protected materials are worried the authorities may be coming for them next. If you are the lucky owner of a 1920s Martin guitar, it may well be made, in part, of Brazilian rosewood. Cross an international border with an instrument made of that now-restricted wood, and you better have correct and complete documentation proving the age of the instrument. Otherwise, you could lose it to a zealous customs agent—not to mention face fines and prosecution. John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a blues and ragtime guitarist, says "there's a lot of anxiety, and it's well justified." Once upon a time, he would have taken one of his vintage guitars on his travels. Now, "I don't go out of the country with a wooden guitar." The tangled intersection of international laws is enforced through a thicket of paperwork. Recent revisions to 1900's Lacey Act require that anyone crossing the U.S. border declare every bit of flora or fauna being brought into the country. One is under "strict liability" to fill out the paperwork—and without any mistakes. It's not enough to know that the body of your old guitar is made of spruce and maple: What's the bridge made of? If it's ebony, do you have the paperwork to show when and where that wood was harvested and when and where it was made into a bridge? Is the nut holding the strings at the guitar's headstock bone, or could it be ivory? "Even if you have no knowledge—despite Herculean efforts to obtain it—that some piece of your guitar, no matter how small, was obtained illegally, you lose your guitar forever," Prof. Thomas has written. "Oh, and you'll be fined $250 for that false (or missing) information in your Lacey Act Import Declaration." Consider the recent experience of Pascal Vieillard, whose Atlanta-area company, A-440 Pianos, imported several antique Bösendorfers. Mr. Vieillard asked officials at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species how to fill out the correct paperwork—which simply encouraged them to alert U.S. Customs to give his shipment added scrutiny. There was never any question that the instruments were old enough to have grandfathered ivory keys. But Mr. Vieillard didn't have his paperwork straight when two-dozen federal agents came calling. Facing criminal charges that might have put him in prison for years, Mr. Vieillard pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating the Lacey Act, and was handed a $17,500 fine and three years probation. Given the risks, why don't musicians just settle for the safety of carbon fiber? Some do—when concert pianist Jeffrey Sharkey moved to England two decades ago, he had Steinway replace the ivories on his piano with plastic. Still, musicians cling to the old materials. Last year, Dick Boak, director of artist relations for C.F. Martin & Co., complained to Mother Nature News about the difficulty of getting elite guitarists to switch to instruments made from sustainable materials. "Surprisingly, musicians, who represent some of the most savvy, ecologically minded people around, are resistant to anything about changing the tone of their guitars," he said. You could mark that up to hypocrisy—artsy do-gooders only too eager to tell others what kind of light bulbs they have to buy won't make sacrifices when it comes to their own passions. Then again, maybe it isn't hypocrisy to recognize that art makes claims significant enough to compete with environmentalists' agendas. [/quote] Source: [url]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576530520471223268.html[/url] Good to know, that musicians traveling abroad without proper paperwork supporting that their mahogany Martin guitar, Steinway piano, or ivory flute can be taken for something as simple as not having paperwork proving it's legit...

Try the Music sub-forum instead.

This is always happening, my guitar (which is from Prestige) also haves illegal wood. Many illegal woods are even rarer and better sounding than the mahagony one's, and cheaper to get for the manufacturers.

[QUOTE=Yur|ko;31960257]Try the Music sub-forum instead.[/QUOTE] Sorry, I just went to the first music forum I saw, never noticed a sub-forum.

Isn't this three months old or something? I could swear I heard it before.

[QUOTE=Mikesword221;31960849]Isn't this three months old or something? I could swear I heard it before.[/QUOTE] It's the second time they are being investigated.

[QUOTE=cheesywlz;31961121]It's the second time they are being investigated.[/QUOTE] Oh. So I take it they found nothing the first time?

I remember reading a magazine a while back with an article on something very similar to this.

Here's an interview with Gibson's CEO yesterday explaining the raids a little bit from his perspective. Trying to find a source of information from the DoJ's side (no luck, go figure). [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RnIdhb2iXg&feature=player_embedded#[/url]!

If anyone is still interested in this story, here's an NPR article about why they were being investigated: [url]http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/08/31/140090116/why-gibson-guitar-was-raided-by-the-justice-department?sc=fb&cc=fp[/url]

YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO GET HAND CARVED WOOD ON THE MOON?

From what I've read about it, they raided the place because Gibson imported wood from India and they are using a law saying that it is illegal to break a law in another country. It is illegal to export that specific wood in India, so this would be in violation. Why the US would have to enforce another country's law is a bit of another story. Anyway, as it turns out, it is not illegal for Gibson to import this wood as they have a contract with the Indian government saying it is permitted, and this contract is verified by the a third party. Where this gets really confusing is that a decent number of other companies import wood from India and have faced no action, Gibson has been singled out, and in an earlier dispute they were encouraged to outsource their production by the court. The lady in the NPR report trying to claim this is an environmental cause is out of her mind, but really, the technicalities of the case aren't really known as of now.

This is true, Pepin. Another thing revealed by the Gibson Guitar CEO earlier this week on a news broadcasting with Beck, as well as with another reporter, is that they have finally received information about the raid in 2009 by the DoJ; and in the paperwork, it stated that everything would be cleared if they simply "...moved to Madagascar" to finish the ebony fretboards at the time that were allegedly under investigation. This case to me, simply doesn't make much sense. For one, isn't there a limitation and due process for the amount of time evidence can be held and detained without accusation? Surely almost 2 years is over that. As well as the fact, is why are they being singled out; especially being one of the very few remaining "Made in America" products left in the country. This really just makes no sense to me.

I've got a 2010 Schecter with an ebony fretboard, do I need paperwork if I carry it overseas?

I doubt even a lawyer would know. The law they are using is really bad.