Monster Cable's Thuggish Behavior

[MonsterVintage]

“Monster” Audio/Vintage Cable Company Tries to Strong-Arm Small Vintage Clothing Business

Monster Cable, an Audio/ Video cable specialist is attempting to takeover the domain name and use of the word “Monster” for many websites around the globe. Monster Cable has filed a Federal Lawsuit to take over the website www.Monstervintage.com. Monster Cable claims that we (Monster Vintage) do not have the right to use the word “MONSTER”, a word used to emphasize our large selection of used vintage clothing. Attorneys for Monster Cable reported to the court fraudulent signatures to sneak thru the Federal Court system and take over www.Monstervintage.com., putting us out of business and stealing our domain name. Currently, the Monster Cable Corp. is in a number of legal battles over the word usage of “Monster”, including a recent one with San Francisco’s own, Candlestick Park. (See: www.insidebayarea.com/ci_2420226)

Monstervintage.com is a very small cottage business established during the summer of 2001, which sells classic All-American, used vintage clothing. We (Monster Vintage) would like to know how our business threatens a 300 Million dollar a year cable company?

We have started the legal procedures necessary to fight this battle, and would love to share our story with a number of media outlets to show how some big corporations try to strong-arm smaller businesses into submission. (See below on how to contact Monster Cable with your voice on this important issue).

We (Monster vintage) can be reached at the following:

Victor Petrucci
Monstervintage.com (Updated with new info on this case)
P.O. Box 679
Camas, WA 98607
503-780-6316
info@monstervintage.com

***P.S. Letters to Monster Cable (dgraham@monstercable.com PR Dept./ dgraham@monstercable.com General Counsel) expressing your thoughts on this issue are highly encouraged. Thank you for your time and patience on this important issue.***

[Prune]

You really should submit this as a slashdot.org story, instead of posting here. No one here cares about Monster as they are known for all marketing and no quality, so you won't get any response. At slashdot.org you should have much better luck, and a few orders of magnitude more people will see the post.

[SY]

I've been in a trademark battle with them before. Unless you're willing to spend a LOT of money on attorneys with no guarantee of winning, you're out of luck. When fighting Godzilla, it's sometimes more prudent to cut and run.

[MonsterVintage]

cut & run, no way....
give into the slime trying to take our small business....they wanted to strong arm us to pay them money up front and 1% of our gross income.

It just WRONG!


David beat Goliath

[Variac]

It's true - they stole our stadium!!!!

[SY]

Right and wrong has nothing to do with it. Welcome to the American legal system.

I've moved this over to "Off Topic" because, well, it is.

[Steve Eddy]

Monster Cable's corporate thug lawyers are at it again.

Back in 2002, Monster Cable's lawyers filed a lawsuit against Mike Shkolnik, who was in the business of selling monster paraphenalia, such as masks, costumes, etc. and who had registered a website called monster.biz.

After word of the lawsuit reached the audiophile community and Monster Cable was excoriated for such thuggish behavior, Monster Cable dropped the lawsuit and Mr. Shkolnik was given an apology by Monster's COO Irene Baran.

Apparently Monster Cable hasn't learned anything from that experience and the latest victim of their corporate thug lawyers is a mom & pop operation in Oregon that sells vintage clothing under the name Monster Vintage.

A trademark does not grant unlimited rights. Particularly with respect to common words as "monster." However Monster Cable's corporate thug lawyers are under orders to litigate against any and every use of the word "monster."

This is nothing short of legal thuggery and harrassment.

The folks at Monster Vintage don't have the resources to hire trademark attornesy to fend off an attack from Monster Cable's $300 million a year deep pockets so publicity is their only hope.

Don't let these thugs get away with this!

You can express your opinions directly to Noel Lee at nlee@monstercable.com

se

P.S. You can get more information on the monster.biz lawsuit at http://www.madmartian.com/legal and information on the Monster Vintage lawsuit at http://www.monstervintage.com

[DigitalJunkie]

Well,I'll certainly never buy a MonsterCable product,not that I would have in the first place,but now I hate them twice as much....Jerks.

[SuppersReady]

What can Monster Cable (I wouldn't wish to confuse them with any other company) possibly stand to gain from this behaviour? What other audio companies does Monster Cable have links with? I am very glad I haven't already used any of their products, I certainly won't now.

Steve, thank you for highlighting this despicable behaviour. Mr. Lee has already received my thoughts regarding his actions.

Paul

[SY]

Steve, I'm merging this with a previous thread on the subject.