I suspect it's only a matter of time before somebody turns the tables on monster, somehow. But filing extortion charges is tough. The courts are the one avenue through which one can legally pursue extortionary schemes, which is exactly what this is.

The laws in the US are tough about protecting the right to bring suit. The underlying theory is that the more you make it expensive or risky to sue, the more it will advantage the powerful and wealthy, which overall I think is true (although that may be a price worth paying).

If a person could be sent to prison for extortion or forced to pay millions in legal expenses if they file a lawsuit and lose, then a lot of pivotal and important lawsuits would probably never have been filed, and filing a lawsuit would suddenly become a very risky proposition UNLESS you are rich enough to afford mad lawyers and court costs. Therefore the definition and punishments for frivilous lawsuits are pretty narrowly-defined.

You could try to make a law that would make it so that only the Moster Cables of the world and not the Joe Averages could be charged with extortion, but I think you'll agree that the more you think about it, the tougher it would be to craft that language. After all, in the eyes of the law the merits of the suit are really determined by whether you won or lost, not whether the judge thinks it was "fair."

Please note that I'm not saying that the current system is *good,* nor defending it, just pointing out some unintended consequences. Other countries do it somewhat differently.

I think the best thing to do is to spread the word, ESPECIALLY in music stores. Most of the salespeople have no idea this going on, and a lot of them push monster cable because, well, monster pays them to do so. If you tell them what's up a lot of them will actually change their tune. Music store employees sometimes have a more anti-corporate streak than the general population.

Besides, wouldn't it be kind of cooler to take down Monster WITHOUT suing?

Cheers.

Therefore the definition and punishments for frivilous lawsuits are pretty narrowly-defined.

You could include a proviso in the law that states that extensions are automatically denied if the plaintiff is over a 100 or 1000 times the size economically as the defendant, or has a dedicated legal staff (!), where the defendant has not.

If I owned a large company that was sued by Monster Cable, I would file extortion charges against them. There is much evidence on the web for the case.

The way the standard trademark/patent/copyright infringement shakedown works is you start by attacking some small-time mom & pops who couldn't possibly fight back. Each little "win" adds to a cumulative legal precedent that you can eventually take to court and take on one of the big guys. Their deep pockets won't help much when you can demonstrate to the judge that you already have a couple dozen identical judgments in your favor. You can't call it extortion after multiple courts have already given their legal blessing.

The only way to battle these jerks is through a grassroots movement. It really does work, and there's nothing they can do to stop us from expressing opinions. So express at every opportunity, including loudly during your next trip to Guitar Center.

On my wish list at musiciansfriend sits a pair of Monster cables 3' patch cables (unbalanced) to add a couple more channels from my mixer to my soundcard breakout box. Scratch that idea as I'm now a full fledge member of the boycott Monster cable movement.

I wish I had the fortitude to boycott any business that sells Monster cables but I'm too much of a music equipment junky to pull that off.

I kind of like the idea of making my own cables. I guess I'll start my internet search of a supplier of the equipment and materials needed.

Cheers

Start a company called Cable Inc., deposit the word cable as a brandname/trademark, grant everyone the right to use it, except Monster Cable Inc., and sue them for infringement? If they can do it?

the legal system will always benefit people with more money or an inordinate amount of time on their hands. you all may or may not be aware of the eolas lawsuit, basically a shell corporation that successfully sued microsoft (or whatever the term is) over a patent they filed which essentially gives them the rights to anything on the internet considered "rich content." in that case, the little guy took a chunk out of the big guy, although as with most patent cases i think this one was a crock, since rich content was around before eolas filed their patent, but i digress...

in order to make justice available in civil court, the system is biased toward the plantiff. in order to help ensure due process, the criminal court is biased toward the defendant (the 10 to 1 or 100 to 1 rule - that 100 criminals go free before 1 innocent person is convicted).

what's missing are judges who have the ability, guts or intelligence to dismiss stupid cases out of hand before they get anywhere. but that doesn't fly with the legal purists and special interest groups.

ORIGINAL: Roflcopter

Therefore the definition and punishments for frivilous lawsuits are pretty narrowly-defined.

You could include a proviso in the law that states that extensions are automatically denied if the plaintiff is over a 100 or 1000 times the size economically as the defendant, or has a dedicated legal staff (!), where the defendant has not.

The same thought occurred to me. Just come up with a workable way to define size, like net worth of the corporation, number of employees, annual sales volume, or some formula accounting for all three factors.

The same thought occurred to me. Just come up with a workable way to define size, like net worth of the corporation, number of employees, annual sales volume, or some formula accounting for all three factors.

Yup. I think MC is only the tip of the iceberg in such gaming the system. A presidentially appointed staff of ex-judges could easily take store of all such 'gaming' issues, put up advise for stopgap measures, effect these pro tem per presidential decree, and send it off to the respective Houses.

As a matter of fact, any country should have such a watch-dog committee, with enough teeth to match their bark.

I have a feeling if you Googled McDonalds you'd find similar business practices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_legal_cases

I've decided to get to the bottom of this. I will go to Monster Cable and ask them to respond to these accusations. As soon as I hear back from them, I will let you know what is going on. If that doesn't work, I will change my name to Monster Recording and see how long it takes them to sue me.

Don't try to thank me.

It seems to us - who have no claim to legal expertise - that Carson City's Convention and Visitors Bureau needs to fight to use Mark Twain's name in its advertising.

A company called CMG Worldwide is trying to squeeze $1,500 out of the bureau for its past use of Twain in advertising material. The company, which has a contract with the Mark Twain Foundation Trust, is based in Indiana, where trademarks are recognized for 100 years after the person's death.

But we're operating in Nevada, which recognizes a trademark for only 50 years. How a state law in Indiana can tell a Nevada visitors bureau what to do is something, we guess, that lawyers need to figure out.

Nevertheless, as we've pointed out before, there are numerous places named for Twain all over America - including a Lyon County town and a Carson City school.

Isn't it a historical fact that Twain worked and wrote here. What's the visitors bureau supposed to do, word its advertisement something like: "Come visit the Comstock, where a really, really famous American writer whose name rhymes with Dark Train once worked?"

If the bureau settles with CMG Worldwide for past use of the name, it will be admitting that it did something wrong and will give the company leverage to forbid use of Twain's name in the future. That may be true in Indiana, but it's not true in Nevada.

Of course, the issue isn't over Twain or his writing or his image. It's over the money the company stands to collect from licensing. Without some kind of legal challenge, the visitors bureau won't have much of a leg to stand on if it wants to negotiate a deal.

Twain himself was a fairly ingenious self-promoter, so it doesn't surprise us that someone is profitting from his name nearly 90 years after his death. Perhaps the visitors bureau can come up with a clever way around the Indiana law.

For example, Carson City is actually home to Orion Clemens, whose brother, Sam, became a really, really famous writer whose pen name rhymes with Dark Train ....