Monster Cable is Back! Sues Mini-Golf Company

[sitting_duck]

I found this website called You Tomb. It is dedicated to free speech over the internet. They look for videos that were taken off the internet because someone didn’t agree with whatever the video showed. Guess who made the list. That’s right. Monster cable. In short, a video was taken off because monster cable didn’t agree with it. Check it out for yourself. Here is the link;

http://youtomb.mit.edu/youtube/KYM87ZEnvDM

 

[jamie2112]

noel lee is going to regret his desicions I am very sure of that now. People in my industry are spreading word hardcore. I am getting ton's of mail to my other pro audio sites. You Screwed up this time MC.

 

[Kn9Sly]

noel lee is going to regret his desicions I am very sure of that now. People in my industry are spreading word hardcore. I am getting ton's of mail to my other pro audio sites. You Screwed up this time MC.

Aw man, you just made my day. I love to see the truth spreading around. I think that you put it extremely well: MC screwed up this time and they should get to finally pay for it.

 

[jamie2112]

Aw man, you just made my day. I love to see the truth spreading around. I think that you put it extremely well: MC screwed up this time and they should get to finally pay for it.

You can help spread the word as well. Just hit up as many people as you can and make them aware of mc's bad buisness practices.....We all need to get involved here as its something that most all of us believe is a great injustice being done to MMG...

 

[Eryk13]

You're goin down MC!

From our friends at Monster Cable:

"Dear customers,

Thanks for taking the time to e-mail us with your thoughts and feelings. We want you to know that we highly respect your viewpoint, and it is so important to us that we filed the papers to drop the lawsuit at the beginning of December. Our reputation is our most important asset, which we have built over the last 30 years, and the negative sentiment generated by this situation was being destructive to us. Please know that your email and that of others has been heard and has done its job.

Please also understand our viewpoint, that we wanted to let you know the circumstances from which you base your comments as we believe that you are being misled with a lot of misrepresentations and untruths. It’s reasonable for you to know both sides of the story, and if you scroll down past this message you’ll be able to see our viewpoint.

On a more personal note, Monster is still the family owned minority business that Noel Lee started from nothing 30 years ago. Noel is a strong proponent of entrepreneurship (he is the proud recipient of the Ernst & Young Northern California Entrepreneur of the year award, and has taught entrepreneurship as a guest speaker at several Universities). We are not an uncaring corporation, and we are not bullies, but a hard working company with great people who make great products. Unfortunately, our famous brand is being diluted by others who aren’t properly establishing the rights to use it – they don’t have a trademark on anything Monster.

We hate to lose you as a customer as a result of all this, but we hope you understand that it took Noel Lee 30 years of hard work to build up the Monster name as a famous brand, and we don’t want to lose it. Thanks for letting us express our viewpoint.

Monsterously,

The Monsters"

 

[sitting_duck]

From our friends at Monster Cable:

"Dear customers,

Thanks for taking the time to e-mail us with your thoughts and feelings. We want you to know that we highly respect your viewpoint, and it is so important to us that we filed the papers to drop the lawsuit at the beginning of December. Our reputation is our most important asset, which we have built over the last 30 years, and the negative sentiment generated by this situation was being destructive to us. Please know that your email and that of others has been heard and has done its job.

Please also understand our viewpoint, that we wanted to let you know the circumstances from which you base your comments as we believe that you are being misled with a lot of misrepresentations and untruths. It’s reasonable for you to know both sides of the story, and if you scroll down past this message you’ll be able to see our viewpoint.

On a more personal note, Monster is still the family owned minority business that Noel Lee started from nothing 30 years ago. Noel is a strong proponent of entrepreneurship (he is the proud recipient of the Ernst & Young Northern California Entrepreneur of the year award, and has taught entrepreneurship as a guest speaker at several Universities). We are not an uncaring corporation, and we are not bullies, but a hard working company with great people who make great products. Unfortunately, our famous brand is being diluted by others who aren’t properly establishing the rights to use it – they don’t have a trademark on anything Monster.

We hate to lose you as a customer as a result of all this, but we hope you understand that it took Noel Lee 30 years of hard work to build up the Monster name as a famous brand, and we don’t want to lose it. Thanks for letting us express our viewpoint.

Monsterously,

The Monsters"

Sounds great. You know what also sounds great? My girlfriend telling me she loves me and wants to make me happy. But if she is jamming bamboo shoots under my fingernails at the same time, it kind of loses its meaning. Please. Action speaks louder than words.
Do you guys over there at monster cable even realize that the more you try to attempt to explain yourselves, the worse you sound? A person who says one thing but does another is called a liar. You are trying to defend yourselves from yourselves. You brought this upon yourselves. Don’t come here and try to rationalize to us. Show us. Then we might actually believe you.

 

[Kn9Sly]

From our friends at Monster Cable:

"Dear customers,

Thanks for taking the time to e-mail us with your thoughts and feelings. We want you to know that we highly respect your viewpoint, and it is so important to us that we filed the papers to drop the lawsuit at the beginning of December. Our reputation is our most important asset, which we have built over the last 30 years, and the negative sentiment generated by this situation was being destructive to us. Please know that your email and that of others has been heard and has done its job.

Please also understand our viewpoint, that we wanted to let you know the circumstances from which you base your comments as we believe that you are being misled with a lot of misrepresentations and untruths. It’s reasonable for you to know both sides of the story, and if you scroll down past this message you’ll be able to see our viewpoint.

On a more personal note, Monster is still the family owned minority business that Noel Lee started from nothing 30 years ago. Noel is a strong proponent of entrepreneurship (he is the proud recipient of the Ernst & Young Northern California Entrepreneur of the year award, and has taught entrepreneurship as a guest speaker at several Universities). We are not an uncaring corporation, and we are not bullies, but a hard working company with great people who make great products. Unfortunately, our famous brand is being diluted by others who aren’t properly establishing the rights to use it – they don’t have a trademark on anything Monster.

We hate to lose you as a customer as a result of all this, but we hope you understand that it took Noel Lee 30 years of hard work to build up the Monster name as a famous brand, and we don’t want to lose it. Thanks for letting us express our viewpoint.

Monsterously,

The Monsters"

Alright alright, okay okay... so you guys want to continue to explain yourselves in this way, then let's just say this: talk is cheap. What difference does it make if you come on here and 'TELL' us how great you are when you're still doing all the same bullshit tactics that started this whole thing in the first place. You can't just say your cool, you have to 'SHOW' us. So far, all we’ve seen is greed and extortion, backed up by your ridiculous (and sad) justifications on how you actually feel that your trademark litigation practices are the right thing to do?

You can't expect us to believe that you are 'compelled' to be corporate ***holes, you're making a choice to do this, and while you may think that you're protecting your brand from dilution, you're actually ruining it and turning yourselves into a national joke in the process.

Okay so, you want to fix your public image, you can't just say it and it's true: DO something about it. Fix your mess already. Reimburse mmg for the damage you've caused them - (and anyone else you've tried to bleed dry with these stupid lawsuits for that matter) and apologize publicly to these people and your customers. Now doesn't that make you feel all warm and human inside? How about telling us you've changed and you won't do this kind of thing anymore? People expect you to defend your trademark versus oh, I don't know, the 'monster' company that sells ****ing cable! But not this other stuff. COME ON. We're not stupid, how about suing someone that may actually have product confusion with you?
Not to mention that the sheer amount of money you spend on these legal cluster****s could be well better spent on making cable that actually has the quality you claim it does and not for ten times the price of an equal product. Yup, we know about that too, as does most of the civilized world. I personally can't wait to see the protest at CES and I hope it does you guys a world more of hurt.

Talk is cheap, but your talk is worthless. Put up or Shut up.

yee-haw.

 

[pzaur]

If Monster Cable truly wants the public to believe their rhetoric, they should drop/release all ownership of any "Monster" worded trademark not 100% affiliated with the cable industry. I have no issues with owning the ones that are audio/visual cable based. Everything else is just a means to an unholy word monopoly that has been discussed to death here.

-pat

 

[MatthewB.]

I completely agree, If the word Monster is used in conjunction with anything that is Audio/Video based then by all means sue away. But to go after clothing companies, soft drink companies, Mini Golf golf companies and movies that use the the word Monster is just plain stupid and your constant lawsuits make you look like imbicles and all you are doing with these frivilous lawsuits is creating a hatred towards a product that while extremely overpriced is a good product. I was watching a movie preview the other day (another animated movie coming out) called "Aliens vs. Monsters" and had to laugh wondering if the Ambulance chasers over at the Monster Law Offices already had papers in place to sue them too. (bet you guys do, dontcha?) Here's an idea publicly apologize to those who you sued friviously, make restitution against them by paing for all legal costs and start applying more than 1% of your yearly budget on product and develpoment and then make a product that is comparable in price to your competion. (ex. I would rather spend 350.00 on a Tripplite Voltage Regulator than 2,000 on the Monster AVS2000) which does the same thing.

 

[markw]

So, now monster Cable is playing the race card, eh?

"family owned minority business"?

Does that mean those poorly paid, under-represented workers that make his cables in China are his relatives? ...or that he only hires Chinese?

I really don't comprehend what's on the minds of Lee & Lawyers, particularly as far as MMG goes.

First off, keep onin mind that Monster depends on the ignorance of Joe Sixpack to keep the big box stores salspeople lieing about his overpriced products superiority and pushing it for spiffs. Once Joe gets wise, he's on to Monoprice, Blue Jeans and even the generics that are sold in-store. One would think that alone would seem to want him to keep a pretty low profile. An uneducated customer is a happy Monster Cable customer. Truly, ignoreance is bliss for Noel Lee and his cadre of fans.

Second, it seems that people actually have fun at Monster Mini Golf. I would think htat Noes would be smart enough to capatilize on t he warm, fuzzy feelings that people have from playing mini golf, maybe even transferring into a receptive mood when the predatory salesperson at Big Circuits pushes overpriced Monster products on them. After all, that warm fuzzy feeling their in their memories from their good time at Monster Mini Golf just might grease the ... err, way, for them to sell overpriced Moinster Cable products.

Add to that the fact that MMG seems to be doing well and is developing it's own following just might make it beneficial for Noel and his snakes to cozy up to them and ride on their warm, touchy-feely, family friendly coat-tails, no? Heck, it would do Noel good to be confused with them. Any fool could see that.

But no. Like the snake said in the old joke "You knew what I was in the beginning". He's gotta sic his dogs on them. And, funny thing? Those lawyers don't seem to have Chinese names.

I await the further developments here. I just hope no gag order goes into effect.

 

[Ray Kimber]

....Okay so, you want to fix your public image, you can't just say it and it's true: DO something about it. Fix your mess already. Reimburse mmg for the damage you've caused them - (and anyone else you've tried to bleed dry with these stupid lawsuits for that matter) and apologize publicly to these people and your customers. Now doesn't that make you feel all warm and human inside? How about telling us you've changed and you won't do this kind of thing anymore? People expect you to defend your trademark versus oh, I don't know, the 'monster' company that sells ****ing cable! But not this other stuff. COME ON. We're not stupid, how about suing someone that may actually have product confusion with you?....


....Talk is cheap, but your talk is worthless. Put up or Shut up.

yee-haw.

You are saying what I was saying on New Years' day 2005 - here is an excerpt. (this was posted on Audio Asylum):

....If Monster Cable's tactics are as bad as they appear regarding Snow Monsters, Monster Vintage and Monster Away, then I think they should stop it now AND go back and un-do some stuff, give back previous arm-twisted trademarks and agreements, and make amends to all others that were beat up. (BTW, Monster Away was a water pistol to be sold to children so they could give a little Monster Away squirt under the bed before they went to sleep. Monster Cable opposed the trademark application?!? I looked at the list of actions in the Trademark office, seems to me like Monster Cable just flat wore them out of money and/or will and/or spirit) ....

....It won't be enough for me to just have Monster Cable just say "sorry" to Snow Monsters, because I truly believe that they will just continue on their merry way and view an occasional "sorry" as a cost of business. I want to see a "righting" of past "wrongs" and a removal of either Monster Cable's will or means to mount future over-reaching sales tactics and over-reaching trademark tactics. ....


....My bottom line and sincere opinion is; I want to see Monster Cable stop the hurtful damage they are doing, apologize and make amends, <and>correct past similar situations....

Ray

BTW In July of 2004 Monster Cable started tormenting Snow Monsters. I became aware of this around Dec 25th of 2004. Frankly I supposed that Monster Cable had a point, cuz I supposed that MC would have good sense and reason for a trademark dispute. It didn't take me very long to talk to both sides and Snow Monsters sent me copies of documents. It looked to me like MC was hammering Snow Monsters for the hell of it. It strikes me as the pinnacle of hubris to see MC pleading for "mercy and understanding" at this time. Here is a link to a letter that Snow Monsters sent MC - prepare to get your heart broken:

http://www.weberafterdark.com/pdf/SnowMonstersLetter.pdf

MC continued to beat on Snow Monsters right up until CES, when suddenly they were all friends?!? - yea right. Everyone should download and save this letter and tack it right next to what MC is saying now. Really. some downloaded copies will prevent history from being quashed - again.


N.B. I got this letter From Jack Turner before Jan 1, 2005 - This is important because a few days later it seems to me that MC negotiated a quicky settlement that included a strict gag order. At that time Jack completely zipped up.

 

[esross]

From our friends at Monster Cable:

"Dear customers,
<<SNIP>>
Monsterously,

The Monsters"

Folks, this is Erik from Monster. Just for the record, this post was not made by me or anyone at Monster. It is a copy'n'paste from our Web site, but just wanted to jump in to clarify. Thanks.

 

[pzaur]

Folks, this is Erik from Monster. Just for the record, this post was not made by me or anyone at Monster. It is a copy'n'paste from our Web site, but just wanted to jump in to clarify. Thanks.

I don't think there was any confusion about who it was representing based on the tone of the header and post.

So, what does Monster Cable think about showing some true good will and releasing the trademarks that were "improperly" obtained through muscle and bankrupting small companies that offer no confusion to the audio/visual industry?

-pat

 

[boycott MC]

Remenber...March 1 2009 is Boycott Monster cable Day !

 

[majorloser]

Folks, this is Erik from Monster. Just for the record, this post was not made by me or anyone at Monster. It is a copy'n'paste from our Web site, but just wanted to jump in to clarify. Thanks.

It's lonely when you sit on a throne.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Remenber...March 1 2009 is Boycott Monster cable Day !

One day? Not enough. How about forever?

 

[Eryk13]

Folks, this is Erik from Monster. Just for the record, this post was not made by me or anyone at Monster. It is a copy'n'paste from our Web site, but just wanted to jump in to clarify. Thanks.

Should I be expecting a trademark infringement lawsuit on my name now?

Bottom line - I want to make sure everything your company puts out statement-wise is copied in its entirety, and the original message preserved. Because you might, I don't know....take down the message afterwards because it didn't have the desired effect your company had hoped for.

Kind of like how this message is now missing from your monstrously untrue webpage.

 

[Ray Kimber]

Snow Monsters Historical Documents

During the last few days of 2004 I was sent some documents and I also saved some files.

This will let you see what I saw at that time - late 2004. I do warrant that these are true copies and not modified by me in any way. Frankly I am glad that I save stuff, though sometimes it takes me a while to re-find it.



Copy of letter provided to me by Jack Turner.

http://www.weberafterdark.com/pdf/SnowMonstersLetter.pdf


Copy of Fax sent to Rep. Bishop - the representative from my district, provided to me by Jack Turner

http://www.weberafterdark.com/pdf/SnowMonstersFax.pdf


Copy of the flyer that was prepared for street distribution at CES2005, provided to my by Jack Turner

http://www.weberafterdark.com/pdf/SnowMonstersProtestFlyer.pdf


Since the internet service at the Alexis Park was slow I downloaded(mirrored) and saved the portions of the Snow Monsters web site that talked about their conflict with MC. It looks like I saved it along with most of the clickable links.

http://www.weberafterdark.com/archive/sites/snowmonsters/MonsterCable/media.html

 

[jamie2112]

Thanks Ray.Whatever happened to the snow monsters lawsuit. Did they win? I guess I could look it up huh? ANyway thanks for the info....

 

[Ray Kimber]

Thanks Ray.Whatever happened to the snow monsters lawsuit. Did they win? I guess I could look it up huh? ANyway thanks for the info....

As I recall the story; Snow Monsters tried to "talk sense" to MC starting from when MC sent the opening volley in July of 2004, until Snow Monsters was so desperate/angry/frightened that Snow Monsters filed a Declaratory Judgement Action in Federal Court against MC.

Jack Turner of Snow Monsters was beside himself, he was prepared to "risk it all" rather than have it taken from him. Jack was absolutely committed to attend to some Snow Monsters business in Canada that fell right on top of CES. His parents, in their 70's IIRC, were going to drive an RV to Las Vegas and do whatever it took, including perhaps getting arrested - to carry out the protest.

I don't know what happened in the hours before CES but I would guess that MC "blinked" because Snow Monsters still appears to "own" Snow Monsters. Although this is speculation on my part because Jack went from fully engaged with protest to absolutely zipped/gagged.

I didn't pry because I really felt for the guy. Running a business, limited resources, young family, right at the start of his "snow season". However I have always wondered if perhaps carrying on the fight for a bit longer would have saved others a similar struggle.

To be clear. I really don't compete with MC and frankly don't wish them any particular harm. BUT, what IMHO constitutes ridiculous behavior reflects badly on all of us in the specialty cable segment AND I really can't sleep at night if I don't speak up against what looks like a bully - within or without of my industry.