| Monster Cable's Thuggish Behavior - Click HERE for Original Thread |
| 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.*** |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| MonsterVintage |
:whazzat: 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 |
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| Variac |
| It's true - they stole our stadium!!!! |
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| 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. |
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| 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 |
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| 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. |
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| 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 |
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| SY |
| Steve, I'm merging this with a previous thread on the subject. |
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| Prune |
MonsterVintage, I can't stress enough what I wrote in my previous post. If you submit this to Slashdot and get the article posted, millions of people will read it, and you may get a lot to actually email these thugs.
While monstercablesucks.com is registered with them, the .net, .org and other TLD versions are not. I'm surprised no one has started a site bashing the *******s. |
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| Geek |
It can be done and with NO money!
I battled MasterCard and won, over $4,000 in restitution :cool:
I fought a copyright battle over a song that was mine and was plagurized by another - despite I had no proof and the person that stole it was a subcontractor of Correction Services Canada, I won! No money but I costed the subcontractor a MINT in legal fees :D
Go forth small companies and individuals and KICK @$$ :D |
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| Sandy H. |
I have never seen this kind of insanity. At the trademark site, there were 10 pages of filings, most of which seemed to me to be frivolous. I did note that they apparently they have a mark on 'XP'. Hmmmm, wonder why they don't go for ol' Bill G. Maybe a $300mUSD company might not be a big fish in THAT pond!
I'll have a look at my cables tonight when I get home.
Sandy. |
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| Bill Fitzpatrick |
Monster:
I have an idea. You write a letter outlining the particulars of the suit against you and include information about the suits against others. Word it as you like, asking people to boycott Monster Cable for their tacky, unfair and underhanded activities. Add a paragraph asking that everyone who receives the letter send a copy to everyone on their mailing list.
DIY members can then cut and paste the text into their mail programs and send out copies. Within a short period of time, millions of people world wide will have read the letter.
This could have considerable impact upon their sales. |
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| Geek |
They seem to be on crack.
Those connectors Monster claims is too like theirs are generic ones made by the million in China. Every wholsaler I have has them :rolleyes:
| quote: | | This could have considerable impact upon their sales. |
They got large through aquisitions. As soon as a competitor becomes competition, they buy them. They don't sell? They try and run them out with legal BS. |
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| OzMikeH |
| quote: | Originally posted by dangus
Part of the problem is that Monster Vintage is using a logo with a stylized M which is improbably similar to the stylized M that Monster Cable uses. When there are a gazillion ways to draw a funny looking M, it wasn't very wise to use one that looks that much like Monster Cable's trademark.
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Umm.... that looks completely different to me. (or did I miss the joke)
I think Monster Cable should invert the red part and follow it with "-anker cable co."
it's certainly how they're behaving. |
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| pjanda1 |
If you haven't had the chance to read Blue Jeans Cable's response, take the time. If it gets too dry, skip to the last six paragraphs. Monster's tactics strike me as quite similar to the mafia demanding "protection" payments from businesses. They bully and make frivolous claims to scare you, then tell you that it'll all go away for a fee.
pj |
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| Geek |
| I wonder if Monster shares lawyers with the RIAA? :confused: |
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