Monster Cable lawsuits...

[C00kie]

This company http://www.vandenhul.com/artpap/artpap.htm#50 seems much nicer. Also unaffordable for me, but not that much crap and willing to share some real knowledge. And they're dutch

[Mighty_Hero]

Read fine to me

[Green Red Brownell]

If I remember right Trademark law in the UK says you can have the same business name as somebody else in the same area as long as you aren't trading in the same product. I'm not sure about the rest of the world or how it applies to global sales though. So by their reckoning no other company in the world can trade with the word Monster!? Hmmm...

US Trademark law says that you *must* defend your trademark, or you will lose the rights to it. Of course, it is a lawyer's interpretation of how far you need to take this to qualify as having "defeneded" anything....

[C00kie]

And the FAQ has serious humor (we need a laugh after all this lawyers misery) :

3-24 Q: The old power cord from our Swedish vacuum cleaner sounds terrific in my sound system. So I have the plan to collect many old vacuum cleaners and start my own cable business. What do you think about this super idea ?

A: Success !!

[ericj23]

If I remember right Trademark law in the UK says you can have the same business name as somebody else in the same area as long as you aren't trading in the same product. I'm not sure about the rest of the world or how it applies to global sales though. So by their reckoning no other company in the world can trade with the word Monster!? Hmmm...

US Trademark law says that you *must* defend your trademark, or you will lose the rights to it. Of course, it is a lawyer's interpretation of how far you need to take this to qualify as having "defeneded" anything....

they seem to think attack is the best form of defense

[nuffink]

Check out the smug bio of Monster Cables CEO, Noel Lee.

Monster Cable Products, Inc. was founded in 1979 by Noel Lee, who was then a laser-fusion design engineer at Lawrence-Livermore Laboratory, as well as an audiophile and professional drummer. Lee discovered that wires of different constructions produced varying degrees of audio performance when hooked up to loudspeakers. From this discovery, he developed a high performance speaker cable, named it Monster Cable, and literally created an industry.

In March 1977, an article by Jean Hiraga was published attacking high levels of negative feedback and praising the sound of an amplifier with 2% THD. In the same issue, Paul Messenger stated that a Radford valve amplifier sounded better than a transistor one, and by the end of the year the amplifier-sound bandwagon was rolling. Hiraga returned in August 1977with a highly contentious set of claims about audible speaker cables, and after that no hypothesis was too unlikely to receive attention.

He doesn't even bother to check his lies.

[Alfalfa]

edited...

[Hypertone]

This would explain why their products are so overpriced.

[FlounderEye]

Well, I've just told everyone I know. That's the last time I buy from them.

Thanks for the heads up, gang.

[atomic_(no)afro]

I liked the coverage that Techdirt had of this story back in November:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20041110/0531219.shtml

ATA

[VitaminD]

If you guys were going to post this information around town at music/instrument stores.. might I also recommend the A/V shops and stores too..

where there is 1 person looking for cables for their studio, theres probably 10 looking for cables for their Home theatre or Hifi..


in any event.. the U.S. Laws ARE out of whack.. I'd have to agree that there are big problems with laws here when this type of stuff can not only occur, but occur for so long..

seems like someone in the patent office could connect the dots (like all of us have) and realize what they're doing...

Why go to a casino and risk losing money when you can just sue someone frivolously and have no loss to fear?

[androidlove]

My gf works at a music store. She just told the guitar guy about this and he laughed. I hope when I send the printouts from The Denver Post and the US Patent and Trademark Office, he'll be less jovial.

[Muff Wiggler]

overpriced, yes, but good cables

shame, i'll never buy another product from them however

thanks for the heads-up

[mayan]

Does Bobby "Boris" Pickett have a cause of action against Monster Cables? Too bad Forrest Ackerman of Famous Monsters of Filmland (is he still with us?) doesn't bring an action against them as well.

[mindless]

My opinion is this: You can write Monster Cable all you want and send them a thousand links to all these audio sites and it won't make a shit of a difference. You know why? Because Monster Cables have their shit at the cash register of every Guitar Center and Sam Ash and they've got their other cables at every fuckin' Circuit City (and all the comparable stores) and most of the people that shop at those stores couldn't give 2 shits and never read these sites anyway. Plus, all the c**ts who allready swear by Monster Cables and don't really care about their buisness tactics. When I've told people about stuff like this they usually go "Dude, that sucks!" and then they go ahead and buy another one the next time because it's easy and convienient and they're allready familliar with that brand. Seen it a million times. They're going to sell and sell and then sell some more. You guys will be lucky if you can put a 1% dent in their profit. The guys at Monster cable probably get a good chuckle out of your emails. Of course...I could be wrong.


On a side note...the guy who played Spanky in the Lil' Rascals series sued a bunch of people in the 80's for using the name Spanky in their buisness. It was a crushing blow to my line of monkey-grooming products..."Spanky's Monkey Lotion".