22 ms·

Monster Cables picked the wrong guy to threaten (2008)

565 points by wallflower 2y ago

biglyburrito 2y ago
The complete story: https://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/index.htm https://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/index.htm
- jdlshore 2y ago
  For anybody who’s wondering what happened next, this is from the above link: “Monster's counsel had made a horrible mistake, and probably caused lasting harm to the company, by sending me that ridiculous letter. But he, and Monster, did apparently know the first rule of holes: "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." The end, therefore, of the story was a bit anticlimactic. Knowing that I was able to defend myself and knowing that they'd probably be sanctioned for frivolous conduct if they sued me, Monster fell silent. Not a peep was heard again.”
  - mc32 2y ago
    This reminds me of the spat between Tekton Design speakers and a Youtube reviewer. Tekton received such massive and negative feedback, he tried to backpedal the initial threat. But still, the gall. They suffered reputationally not from the [mildly] negative review, but from the fallout from the ill-advised threat of lawsuit. https://www.audioresurgence.com/2024/04/tekton-speakers-reviewing-debacle-and-manufacturer-bullying.html https://www.audioresurgence.com/2024/04/tekton-speakers-revi... [more neutral] https://musictech.com/news/gear/tekton-audio-allegedly-threaten-critics-legal-action-leaving-negative-reviews/ https://musictech.com/news/gear/tekton-audio-allegedly-threa...
    - Blackthorn 2y ago
      It's amazing to me that the writer of that piece walked away with the conclusion that Eric Alexander was in the right.
      - mc32 2y ago
        Just about everyone on YT as well as online sided with the reviewer because Tekton were being ridiculous.
        BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
        I remember seeing his posts on ASR. Some really fun stuff like how the air coming out of the screw holes for the feet would produce a supersonic boom; in a ported enclosure. Wildly entertaining.
      - hamandcheese 2y ago
        I don't think you read the piece? > My overarching sense is that this whole saga has been largely Mr. Alexander’s fault and it could have been easily avoided. > Alexander has dropped the Mother Of All Bombs on this situation, displaying disrespect towards the reviewing industry, and regarding reviewers as trivial annoyances that can be easily brushed aside. The outcome of this saga and who will ultimately withstand the fallout remains to be seen, but Mr. Alexander almost certainly looks like an ass at this moment in time, and in my opinion, any negative assessment he receives is largely self-inflicted.
        zettabomb 2y ago
        I believe they're referring to this bit: >There’s no doubt in my mind that Eric Alexander of Tekton Design is largely in the right, and in principle, challenging these reviewers was mostly justified. The next sentence is revealing though: >The problem, and the reason we’re here now dwelling on it, is how he went about it. I'm not sure if I understand the first of the quotes, honestly, given the rest of the content. But that seems to be what GP was referencing.
  - pdpi 2y ago
    > Monster's counsel had made a horrible mistake, and probably caused lasting harm to the company, by sending me that ridiculous letter This sort of thing always reminds of the Jack Daniels cease and desist letter[0], which, at least for me, had the exact opposite effect. 0. https://brokenpianoforpresident.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/jack-daniels-lawsuit-the-full-scoop/ https://brokenpianoforpresident.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/jac...
    - silisili 2y ago
      Hadn't seen this before. What a nicely written letter. Explained why they have to do this, outlined a reasonable action step, and even offer to help said action. Moreover, it didn't contain a single threat. I wish all companies took such an approach. You catch more flies with honey, and all that.
      - favorited 2y ago
        I used to be the webmaster for my parent's HOA[0], and I bought their .com domain name when it became available (a realtor had owned it originally). They eventually hired a firm to run the site, and I pointed the domain at their nameservers, and forgot about it (paying the ~$20/year in renewals, because that's not a lot of money & I have fond memories of living there). 15 years later, I get a registered letter from a law firm – counsel to the HOA – claiming that I was violating their trademark by owning the domain name, demanding that I turn it over to the HOA, etc. If an actual human had reached out to me, I would have happily transferred the domain. Instead, they paid a lawyer to be a dick about it – so I ignored the letter, they registered the .net, and everyone moved on. I still keep the domain up, and redirect it to their new URL, because as long as the .com domain works, people will be using it. Which means they will still want it, and I'm not giving it to them. At least not until they ask nicely, and catch me with honey instead of vinegar. [0]Despite this incident, their HOA is normally perfectly reasonable. It's a few hundred dollars per year to keep up with road repairs, signage, community facilities upkeep, etc.
        flomo 2y ago
        [flagged]
  - dkh 2y ago
    This is wonderful. It’s also true! Even when I was running a very small business and not particularly bothered by what people were doing that could be argued as resembling trademark infringement, I was urged to be vigilant about it because if you don’t defend your trademark, you risk losing it. That’s how the law works! If that really is the reason you’re threatening action against someone, they may just understand if you’re nice about it! That said, while it may foster more goodwill towards your company, it probably isn’t as surefire a way to generate the swift response you want as being a dick and making the threats
  - derefr 2y ago
    Is there any way to file a (real) countersuit against someone, just to punish them for having wasted your time and energy with a threat of legal action that never materialized?
    - dmurray 2y ago
      The term to search for this is barratry and there are laws against it in some jurisdictions. Realistically, you will not win a judgment on this to compensate you for your time dealing with a single cease and desist letter. If someone shows a really excessive pattern of it, perhaps a judge or a bar association could be convinced to make an example of them.
      - derefr 2y ago
        I guess that does address my concrete question as given. But I think I was less imagining a countersuit that literally just "seeks damages for wasted time and effort"... and more imagining a countersuit that can somehow "rope in" the claims in the original suit, so as to force those claims to be evaluated and case law to be created upon that evaluation — whether the original claimant likes it or not. Imagine, by analogy, outside the domain of IP law: 1. Party A threatens to sue party B for having violated the terms of some contract they have. 2. Party A then drops this threat. 3. Party B then sues party A with the intent of having a judge still evaluate that same question, but now in the other direction: "would party A have had legal standing to sue party B?" — where in the case that party B wins that judgement, this would not only award damages to party B, but also have the same case-law impact as if party A had really sued party B, and lost.
        rzzzt 2y ago
        In Kurt Denke's response he writes: > As for your requests for information, or for action, directed to me: I > would remind you that it is you, not I, who are making claims; and it > is you, not I, who must substantiate those claims. You have not done so. Which party would bear the burden of proof in step 3? Does it get reversed or stay as if the step 1 threat went to court?
  - miki123211 2y ago
    Maybe writing that letter was a bad idea in the first place? It was good for Blue Jeans and for Monster, as they both avoided expensive litigation, but from a more general perspective, it would have been better if Monster thought Blue Jeans was an easy victim, sued and got its comeuppance.
- kopirgan 2y ago
  The last paragraph with upside downside comments are legendary Plus the threat to impose even bigger costs with anti trust violation claims! Need to imagine the face of the in-house counsel reading it.
  - rendaw 2y ago
    But in the end did monster actually face any penalty at all? They threatened the guy, the guy said no, end of story. The bully moves on to threaten the next guy. The story insinuates lasting damage but it seems kind of subtle...
    - kopirgan 2y ago
      Lol it is not subtle at all - it basically says you will get pennies if you take us on and win, but if we win, you get screwed big time incl damages for anti-trust. Guess BJC was content with letting them just go away...but once this was generally known, it does reduce the value of those threats.
    - somat 2y ago
      Most importantly, it was also popularly published. So the critical but tricky to measure metrics now are "how much sales do we loose because we are now firmly labeled as a bully in peoples minds" and "how much potential licensing revenue have we lost because people know they don't need to fold immediately"
      - bee_rider 2y ago
        It is hard do say, though, because the market for Monster cables is pretty clearly people who came in off the street, read nothing, and picked the fanciest looking cable. By their nature they are immune to bad press, right?
- lukan 2y ago
  "There have been numerous times, since my exit from the practice of law and entry into the cable business, when I've been glad that I have a legal background, and this certainly was one of those; it meant that the inevitable surge in adrenalin manifested itself through careful legal review rather than through the intended panic." Channel your energy in the right direction ..
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
  In particular, I'd recommend looking at the full response. While the original article covers the plain-language juicy-sounding excerpts, the full letter to Monster also contains some artful legalese that even I as layman can appreciate: It starts with several pages worth of requests for information. I'm pretty sure those aren't actually requests for information - they're a threat. If Monster were to actually sue, he'd be entitled to these documents as part of discovery, so he's essentially saying "if you sue me, you'll spend a lot of money on discovery (and be forced to reveal stuff you'd rather not)". Sprinkled in are some suggestions of ethics violations on the side of Monster's lawyers, a hint at Monster's likely corporate tax evasion scheme (and the requirement to produce the material that proves the tax evasion in discovery), and the threat to break their racket in the last paragraph that kopirgan already pointed out. All this is even more impressive than the quoted part, and sadly omitted in the original blog post.
  - szundi 2y ago
    [dead]
- AceyMan 2y ago
  Blue Jeans Cables was what I switched to towards the end of my serious audiophile days. Before that, I was set up with StraightWire mostly, but I respected Kimber Kables, though I never ended up getting any of their goods. Now tonearm cables are a whole different animal, and my pair was a mid-priced custom set though one of the high-end dealers — all substance, no flash => aka, not paying for an advertising budget & fancy packaging.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Thank you! The original blog post sets up a story and then gives no ending.
- eek2121 2y ago
  Thanks! I actually did not like that OP did not include the full story, but rather a small part of it. I love reading stuff like this.
schumpeter 2y ago
You have to wonder what it is with companies having “monster” in their names that makes them such monsters. This story reminded me of the multi-year battle by Monster energy going after MonsterFishKeepers.com https://reefbuilders.com/2016/03/01/monster-fish-keepers-wins-battle-against-monster-energy-drink/ https://reefbuilders.com/2016/03/01/monster-fish-keepers-win...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  Monster cables went after Monster Mini Golf rather than the categorically obvious option of advertizing on their go-karts or whatever.
stego-tech 2y ago
It was this story that clued me into BJC as an entity in the first place. Gladly shelled out a couple hundred bucks for solidly-built custom speaker interconnects a few years later with them, and have zero regrets. As far as legal tactics go, I’m very sympathetic to his position and wish more folks would fight to the finish instead of settling for nuisance values.
- olelele 2y ago
  After working with audio professionally I've developed a strong antipathy towards a lot of the audiophile industry. BJC has good prices and seem very legit in my eyes. The pricing seems to reflect actual production costs and not mumbo jumbo alignment in the copper fields...
  - stego-tech 2y ago
    That’s my take as well. They used high quality cables from Belden when I bought mine, not some cheap Chinese knockoff. They’re also not focused on nonsense like “ethernet regenerators” for audio signals or “HDMI cleaners” for video. They’re just good, simple, solidly built cables that fulfill their intended functions. No snake oil, no BS. 10/10 will buy again when I’ve got a home and a rack for a bunch of fixed-length custom cabling.
ocdtrekkie 2y ago
So I clicked the first link to read about the actual claim, and I was floored by the author bio at the bottom: "Clint Deboer was terminated from Audioholics for misconduct on April 4th, 2014. He no longer represents Audioholics in any fashion." Gotta wonder how bad you gotta screw up to have your byline on every article you wrote permanently set to that.
- shermantanktop 2y ago
  Also gotta wonder if he might have sent a cease and desist about that bio.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  Sounds like a case of sour grapes, on the part of Audioholics. He seems to have done fairly well for himself, since then.
  - ocdtrekkie 2y ago
    It's really hard to tell without more detail! I tried doing a bit of digging, but he was a really early staffer to join Audioholics, and was editor-in-chief when he was fired. He's editor-in-chief of another site now, which it looks like he founded. You probably have to do something pretty bad to get publicly fired for cause when you were the editor-in-chief, and him having a new site he made himself isn't exactly an assurance of innocence either. Just... kinda a wild random footnote on a link on an article from over a decade ago.
    - IncreasePosts 2y ago
      From a bunch of digging it appears that, perhaps, Clint set up/joined some sites that were similar enough to his employers, without telling them, and when they found out they took that as him trying to siphon users off of their site, and fired him. If this is true, whether that was wrong of Clint to do or not would depend on his contract.
    - nkurz 2y ago
      I think the answer is that he set up another site called Audiogurus that was advertising itself as being "Audioholics store". This didn't go over well. Here's an article about that hints at it: https://www.audioholics.com/news/audioholics-e-store-name-change https://www.audioholics.com/news/audioholics-e-store-name-ch... And here's a thread about it, which is admittedly hard to read because the "Audioholics" has been replaced the words "Bad Robot": https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/bad-robot.94519/ https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/bad-robot.9451...
RustyRussell 2y ago
OK, the whole "I am a lawyer" was next-levelled by this closing sentence: "Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it."
- econ 2y ago
  I always go with the short 1) excitement about going to court and 2) that I don't really care what it costs.
walrus01 2y ago
Previously, monster cable vs. using a coat hanger for a speaker wire. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&channel=entpr&q=monster+cable+or+coat+hanger https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&channel=ent...
- harrison_clarke 2y ago
  to be fair, monster cables do beat coat hangers these days (the only coat hangers i've seen lately are plastic or wood)
- coin 2y ago
  The reviews on the cables in question (Blue Jeans Cable) are wild. https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RYLMXICLLSJWC?ASIN=B00OJLNEOU https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RYLMXICLLSJWC?ASI... "Music was much more open with plenty of air around the instruments. Imaging was superb - greatly improved over previous cables that I used. The depth was substantially improved with great instrumental recognition from front to rear. In other words, the speakers managed to disappear and only the performances were remaining." "I had for the first time, heard tones and instruments that were previously hidden with other cables. Music sounded more alive - had more presence. Brass instruments now had a bite (yet with a rich, non-strident tone) that sounded as if you were there." "The bass tones improved dramatically, taking on a fuller (tighter with less bloat) than I had remembered with previous cables" I'd love to see how these people do with a double blind setup.
  - Slow_Hand 2y ago
    Welcome to the world of audiophiles. This kind of hyperbole for the magical powers bestowed by even the smallest (or most dubious) accessories is a source of unending amusement for me, if it wasn't so foolish.
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      My favorite quote: Music lovers buy hifi systems to listen to their music. Audiophiles buy music to listen to their hifi systems.
chrisweekly 2y ago
All bullies are cowards.
- nerdile 2y ago
  Agreed. Bschmidt###... who hurt you? Why is this your life?
  - RandomBacon 2y ago
    I removed the numbers and looked up that username to try and figure out what was going on, but it seems to be an empty account from 2010. I feel sad for the person if they think this is the best use of their time. Re about "nobody sees these", only registered users with half a brain see them, and they're the ones who can easily filter out people acting like a child with nothing better to do. It's people not logged in who don't have "show dead" enabled that don't see it.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kazinator 2y ago
I'm thinking, what are the odds that the president of some boutique audio cable company would be a litigator.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  Clearly, 100%
tqi 2y ago
Monster Cables is a name I hadn't thought about in ages... I mostly remember them as the company that tried to convince people that digital images would look better via a more expensive cable.
- ostensible 2y ago
  Well, there is now some truth to it. For example, low quality HDMI cable will may be only good enough for low bandwidth, that would limit refresh rate, and/or color fidelity (e.g. chroma subsampling) and/or resolution. So yea, “digital” cables are not immune to signal integrity issues, and better cables do perform better. I understand that monster takes this to the next level of bullshit — but in principle, yes, more expensive cable cable can yield better quality. Or should I say — crappy cable can result in quality degradation
  - avidiax 2y ago
    > So yea, “digital” cables are not immune to signal integrity issues, and better cables do perform better. Better cables perform better, but not at all in the way that Monster suggests. Gold plating and oxygen-free copper doesn't matter. Any certified HDMI cable will operate at least to its certification, whether or not it is gold plated with triple shielded conductors. I wish the HDMI forum would officially deprecate all older HDMI standards, so that companies like Monster couldn't advertise that their cables provide "better color, higher resolution, better sound", etc. All the cables in the store would be 8k HDMI 2.2 cables, or they wouldn't be allowed to use the HDMI trademark.
    - whatevaa 2y ago
      Nah, cables oftenly can lie about it's certification, especially when it comes to resistance to interference. This is how you get "bad cable".
    - kbutler 2y ago
      Besides interference and lying about specs, cables can be designed for durability or not. I buy cheap cables from China. They generally work-to-spec out of the...plastic bag, but may not handle frequent plug/unplug cycles or any sort of rough treatment.
CalChris 2y ago
Reminds me of when Caterpillar (trucks+tractors) sued Cat and Cloud Coffee (coffee) in Santa Cruz for trademark infringement. https://www.ksbw.com/article/cat-and-cloud-coffee-in-santa-cruz-facing-trademark-controversy-against-caterpillar-inc/27595279 https://www.ksbw.com/article/cat-and-cloud-coffee-in-santa-c...
- jemmyw 2y ago
  What happened? This is reporting on the first round but I can't find a follow-up on how things went. Did Caterpillar back down or did Cat and Cloud lose their apparel trademark?
  - CalChris 2y ago
    Seems to have just faded away. Their name is the same.
  - hamandcheese 2y ago
    A quick google seems to indicate that they are still doing business under that same name. https://catandcloud.com/ https://catandcloud.com/
    - jemmyw 2y ago
      Yah but it was only the apparel side that Caterpillar threatened, so they may have won or given up and stopped selling clothes. Looking at their online store they don't have anything with Cat printed on it right now.
- dehrmann 2y ago
  I heard a story about the CEO of Maxim Integrated complaining about Maxim Magazine and wanting to sue them. The lawyer got a box of chips and a magazine, opened to the centerfold, and said "no one's confusing this for that."
  - jppope 2y ago
npunt 2y ago
In my head canon Monster Cables pivoted to become Monster Energy and justified it to shareholders as 'we're still in the business of getting people wired'
jaredandrews 2y ago
I had no idea Monster sold anything other than over priced guitar cables... About 15 yeard ago, I knew a guy who exclusively bought Monster... well he had two of them, one from the guitar to the pedal board and another from the board to the amp. But it wasn't because of their alleged improved sound quality or whatever, it was because they had a lifetime warranty. Dude had bought two monster 1/4inch cables and gotten them replaced "for free" like 5 times. From what I can tell they got rid of the lifetime warranty around 2018 and have mostly transitioned to licensing their name.
- brendoelfrendo 2y ago
  I definitely got upsold on a Monster cable when I bought my first guitar on the back of that lifetime warranty. Joke's on me, I guess; the cable is almost 20 years old and still working, never had to use the warranty even once. I need to take worse care of my things.
  - metalman 2y ago
    Guitar cable?, ya...noooo cordless my droogys prolly cheaper too did a custom stealth mod to one guitar where the transmitter, plugs into 1/4 jack,under the back cover nice thing is that its possible to turn an amp up to face peeling loudness, and step back, and not get hurt, got to watch for things vibrating off of shelves though and are you kidding me?, I know that as a guitarer there are cumulative cognitive effects, but when a fucking speaker cable outfit starts suing people, something has definitly gone off the rails but oh ya, there are people in jail for "cheating" on video games, but somehow there are government weed stores tone is in the hands
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      I prefer a cable in my active bass, because it's one less set of batteries to think about, and that guy has a pretty hot output. Analog distortion is way better than the sounds you get when you saturate a digital signal path, heh.
    - Frederation 2y ago
ghshephard 2y ago
I read the letter and it looked like pretty much the first negotiating position of any lawyer. Regardless of what you think, convince the opposition that you are prepared to litigate to the end of time.
- noduerme 2y ago
  Just speaking as someone who's not a lawyer, but who grew up in a family of lawyers: This isn't so much a negotiating position as a rigorous way of thinking about everything. It's also the default position if e.g. your child asks you to buy them a book, let them sleep over at a friend's house, etc. (Something an ex-girlfriend of mine categorized as "child abuse", whereas I think it was a fantastic education). Cross-examination on a subject doesn't mean an automatic "no". It's more like: If you want to use X amount of personal capital here, to achieve your ends, then persuade me that you're right using logic and proof, not threats or acting out. It's kind of a Jedi mind training, and a wonderful shield against both bullying and idiocy in the wider world. Because at the end of the day, it is a superpower to be a lawyer, or even to think like one.
  - ttyprintk 2y ago
    “You’re increasing the volume of your voice but not the logic of your argument.”
m463 2y ago
I remember buying audio gear (think receiver, amplifier, cd player) and being the focus of the upsell for 2-5x more expensive monster cables. Once I patiently explained that a cable shouldn't matter for digital as long as the bits got there, and seeing the young sales guy pause and then "get it". And I got the (relatively) cheap cables. Also speaker wire. You can get perfectly good copper cables for less, probably in a thicker gauge wire.
- bolognafairy 2y ago
  > Once I patiently explained that a cable shouldn't matter for digital as long as the bits got there. Emphasis mine. As someone that sold AV equipment, including cables, in the late ‘00s / early ‘10s, nerds that misunderstood the nuances of this were the single worst group of customers to work with. You could see them coming a mile away. By the time “gold-plated HDMI cables are a scam” gets down to their level of pseudo-intellect, it becomes “all cables with the same physical connectors are the same”. Patently untrue, and 99.9% of the time they won’t have any of it. Some of the most snide, belittling, insulting shit ever sneered at me in a professional context has been from some socks-and-sandals nerd practically accusing me of genocide because I dare suggested that the cheapest HDMI cable on the shelf explicitly doesn’t support whatever insanely expensive TV, blu-ray player, or whatever else, that they’ve purchased. 15+ years later, purchasing the ‘right’ HDMI cable is if anything a more Byzantine process. Made worse by the fact that any conversation on the topic inevitably has at last one person butting in to say “they’re all just cables bro aha”.
  - jpgvm 2y ago
    I wish HDMI would die as a standard. The TV folk won't that happen though, controlling HDMI allows them to control the ecosystem by extension. Would be nice if the EU could step in an make DisplayPort the required connection and protocol like they did for the USB-C port for charging.
    - endgame 2y ago
      Especially since the HDMI people have made open-source video drivers effectively impossible.
hagen_dogs 2y ago
[flagged]
- PontifexCipher 2y ago
  What does this add to the conversation?
  - snvzz 2y ago
    Noise.
acobster 2y ago
Perhaps the coolest way I've ever seen someone say "I'd love to see you try."
dkh 2y ago
I want to be this man when I grow up
noduerme 2y ago
>> developed an intense frustration with insurance carriers who would settle meritless claims for nuisance value when the better long-term view would have been to fight against vexatious litigation as a matter of principle I got let out of 2-3 months of jury duty on an asbestos case by saying basically the same thing. Voir dire is fun, particularly if you manage to scare the bejezus out of both sides.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
cwillu 2y ago
Some followup available at https://web.archive.org/web/20080503164740/www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/interview_kurt_denke_man_who_shut_monster_cable_up https://web.archive.org/web/20080503164740/www.freesoftwarem... *edit to fix link; in the future, maybe tell me it broke instead of reflexively downvoting
nukem222 2y ago
I don't quite understand the point of litigating businesses in civil court if existential threats are excluded from judgement. What is the reasoning behind a fine being sufficient to incentivize following the law when you can make so much more money not following the law? I also don't understand what the point of shareholders and board members are if they can't be personally held liable for their investments violating civil laws. What is the fucking rationale behind that? Why must we baby shareholders and be cruel to workers despite the latter providing 100% of society's value?
- lyu07282 2y ago
  Is this a rhetorical question? Cause capitalism, everybody loves capitalism.
seanhunter 2y ago
I was once co-head of a tech company that had an "i" in the title. Like a bajillion other companies our logo was basically just the company's name in a particular font and we turned the dot above the "i" into a little circle in a different colour. So far so not very surprising. A few months in we got a cease-and-desist from a company who claimed (and I'm not making this up) to have a trademark on the idea of making the dot of an "i" into a little circle in a different colour, and said that the trade dress of our logo was infringing because their logo was just their company name in a (different) font with the dot on the "i" being a circle in a different colour. I wrote back and asked them to clarify that it was their contention that that was a trademark and making it very clear I would fight it and we had no intention of changing anything. They disappeared. It's really important not to feed this nonsense by caving to the trolls.
fmajid 2y ago
Blue Jeans Cable is outstanding, and an oasis of sanity and competence in an audiophile market saturated with snake oil peddlers.
VoodooJuJu 2y ago
[dead]
bigtex 2y ago
When I worked at Best Buy in the late 90's, we were trained on the virtues of Monster AV cables, which they pushed because they were an accessory with high margins. I recall one time when a sales manager cut open a cheaper version of some cables and discussed how it had less wiring and insulation, which I think he did with Monster cable to show the drastic difference. I think they had like 3 levels of quality, the cheap stuff, the mid-grade stuff and Monster. Even though I worked there I only ever bought the mid-grade because the quality to price ratio was great.
mmaunder 2y ago
So he’s going to aggressively not let them land any punches? Sometimes a bully needs an ass kicking.
1970-01-01 2y ago
Good lawyers are expensive because they're worth it.
bachmidt1007 2y ago
[flagged]
SeanLuke 2y ago
Meh. If this was the wrong guy to threaten, then he would have sued to overturn their design patents. Instead he just told them where they could stick it. That's done all the time.
spacedcowboy 2y ago
Or you could screw up so monumentally that the “case” (it was never actually brought) becomes an actual meme. I give you the case of Arkell vs Pressdram [1]. I have actually seen a response to a business threat which ended with “I refer you to the response in the case of Arkell vs Pressdram”… 1: https://proftomcrick.com/2014/04/29/arkell-v-pressdram-1971/ https://proftomcrick.com/2014/04/29/arkell-v-pressdram-1971/
- psd1 2y ago
  I've used it against a frivolous parking charge. It's fairly well known in the UK and I've always enjoyed Private Eye
Nifty3929 2y ago
It's not that they picked the wrong guy to threaten - it's just that this particular one won't work out for Monster. No worries, on to the next. If 1 guy out of 100 fights back, and then you just leave that one alone, you're still a big winner.
- Pikamander2 2y ago
  Yeah, the title made me assume that he won a countersuit or got the company fined or something. In reality, he just sent them a slightly-snarky response to their flimsy cease-and-desist, and they decided not to go forward with a lawsuit, which is probably how it would have played out anyway.
  - Etherlord87 2y ago
    I just shared this story with friends, and one of them, a musician, says he will now never again buy monster cables even though they are thought of the best quality. So there is a negative outcome of this to the company.
belter 2y ago
[flagged]
seattle_spring 2y ago
Ha, I love that this is about Blue Jeans Cables. I actually just bought some of their stuff this week-- really incredibly well made cables. Their website looks like it hasn't been updated in the 90s, which leads me to believe that cable quality and website quality are inversely correlated.
kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
Nice dig at the supreme court on their payments page. Kurt hasn't lost his mojo. https://www.bluejeanscable.com/paymentinfo.htm https://www.bluejeanscable.com/paymentinfo.htm
vayup 2y ago
Has a "...what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you." energy to it.
nosequel 2y ago
I've been a fan of blue jeans cables for 15+ years, I'm so glad they are the subject of this post. Blue Jeans just makes high quality stuff for solid prices and no BS.
watersb 2y ago
I bought a pair of utterly ludicrous Monster stereo speaker cables off eBay a coyotes of decades ago, when I was putting together a home audio system. Audio stereophile-wise, I could replace them with zip wire (two conductor, twisted 24-gauge cable). But they wouldn't have the neat nylon braided jacket, or shove things out of the way when I'm moving the speakers. It was stupid but fun to add them to my setup, and now I'm glad I have them. I also have some interconnect cables from Blue Jeans Cable, that fellow is awesome. If Monster is suing him, may they burn in court.
samgranieri 2y ago
Aw man, how the heck did I miss this back in 2008? I bought some monster cables that year and had I of know about this, I would have declined. seeing this pugnacious lawyer write an excellent response has me considering buying from blue jeans.
jb3689 2y ago
Musicians picked Monster because they were reliable and had an excellent replacement policy not because of brand ego. The Darn Tough of cables at least in terms of policies

565 points by wallflower 2y ago

The complete story: https://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/index.htm https://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/index.htm

jdlshore 2y ago
For anybody who’s wondering what happened next, this is from the above link: “Monster's counsel had made a horrible mistake, and probably caused lasting harm to the company, by sending me that ridiculous letter. But he, and Monster, did apparently know the first rule of holes: "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." The end, therefore, of the story was a bit anticlimactic. Knowing that I was able to defend myself and knowing that they'd probably be sanctioned for frivolous conduct if they sued me, Monster fell silent. Not a peep was heard again.”
- mc32 2y ago
  This reminds me of the spat between Tekton Design speakers and a Youtube reviewer. Tekton received such massive and negative feedback, he tried to backpedal the initial threat. But still, the gall. They suffered reputationally not from the [mildly] negative review, but from the fallout from the ill-advised threat of lawsuit. https://www.audioresurgence.com/2024/04/tekton-speakers-reviewing-debacle-and-manufacturer-bullying.html https://www.audioresurgence.com/2024/04/tekton-speakers-revi... [more neutral] https://musictech.com/news/gear/tekton-audio-allegedly-threaten-critics-legal-action-leaving-negative-reviews/ https://musictech.com/news/gear/tekton-audio-allegedly-threa...
  - Blackthorn 2y ago
    It's amazing to me that the writer of that piece walked away with the conclusion that Eric Alexander was in the right.
    - mc32 2y ago
      Just about everyone on YT as well as online sided with the reviewer because Tekton were being ridiculous.
      - BoingBoomTschak 2y ago
        I remember seeing his posts on ASR. Some really fun stuff like how the air coming out of the screw holes for the feet would produce a supersonic boom; in a ported enclosure. Wildly entertaining.
    - hamandcheese 2y ago
      I don't think you read the piece? > My overarching sense is that this whole saga has been largely Mr. Alexander’s fault and it could have been easily avoided. > Alexander has dropped the Mother Of All Bombs on this situation, displaying disrespect towards the reviewing industry, and regarding reviewers as trivial annoyances that can be easily brushed aside. The outcome of this saga and who will ultimately withstand the fallout remains to be seen, but Mr. Alexander almost certainly looks like an ass at this moment in time, and in my opinion, any negative assessment he receives is largely self-inflicted.
      - zettabomb 2y ago
        I believe they're referring to this bit: >There’s no doubt in my mind that Eric Alexander of Tekton Design is largely in the right, and in principle, challenging these reviewers was mostly justified. The next sentence is revealing though: >The problem, and the reason we’re here now dwelling on it, is how he went about it. I'm not sure if I understand the first of the quotes, honestly, given the rest of the content. But that seems to be what GP was referencing.
- pdpi 2y ago
  > Monster's counsel had made a horrible mistake, and probably caused lasting harm to the company, by sending me that ridiculous letter This sort of thing always reminds of the Jack Daniels cease and desist letter[0], which, at least for me, had the exact opposite effect. 0. https://brokenpianoforpresident.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/jack-daniels-lawsuit-the-full-scoop/ https://brokenpianoforpresident.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/jac...
  - silisili 2y ago
    Hadn't seen this before. What a nicely written letter. Explained why they have to do this, outlined a reasonable action step, and even offer to help said action. Moreover, it didn't contain a single threat. I wish all companies took such an approach. You catch more flies with honey, and all that.
    - favorited 2y ago
      I used to be the webmaster for my parent's HOA[0], and I bought their .com domain name when it became available (a realtor had owned it originally). They eventually hired a firm to run the site, and I pointed the domain at their nameservers, and forgot about it (paying the ~$20/year in renewals, because that's not a lot of money & I have fond memories of living there). 15 years later, I get a registered letter from a law firm – counsel to the HOA – claiming that I was violating their trademark by owning the domain name, demanding that I turn it over to the HOA, etc. If an actual human had reached out to me, I would have happily transferred the domain. Instead, they paid a lawyer to be a dick about it – so I ignored the letter, they registered the .net, and everyone moved on. I still keep the domain up, and redirect it to their new URL, because as long as the .com domain works, people will be using it. Which means they will still want it, and I'm not giving it to them. At least not until they ask nicely, and catch me with honey instead of vinegar. [0]Despite this incident, their HOA is normally perfectly reasonable. It's a few hundred dollars per year to keep up with road repairs, signage, community facilities upkeep, etc.
      - flomo 2y ago
        [flagged]
- dkh 2y ago
  This is wonderful. It’s also true! Even when I was running a very small business and not particularly bothered by what people were doing that could be argued as resembling trademark infringement, I was urged to be vigilant about it because if you don’t defend your trademark, you risk losing it. That’s how the law works! If that really is the reason you’re threatening action against someone, they may just understand if you’re nice about it! That said, while it may foster more goodwill towards your company, it probably isn’t as surefire a way to generate the swift response you want as being a dick and making the threats
- derefr 2y ago
  Is there any way to file a (real) countersuit against someone, just to punish them for having wasted your time and energy with a threat of legal action that never materialized?
  - dmurray 2y ago
    The term to search for this is barratry and there are laws against it in some jurisdictions. Realistically, you will not win a judgment on this to compensate you for your time dealing with a single cease and desist letter. If someone shows a really excessive pattern of it, perhaps a judge or a bar association could be convinced to make an example of them.
    - derefr 2y ago
      I guess that does address my concrete question as given. But I think I was less imagining a countersuit that literally just "seeks damages for wasted time and effort"... and more imagining a countersuit that can somehow "rope in" the claims in the original suit, so as to force those claims to be evaluated and case law to be created upon that evaluation — whether the original claimant likes it or not. Imagine, by analogy, outside the domain of IP law: 1. Party A threatens to sue party B for having violated the terms of some contract they have. 2. Party A then drops this threat. 3. Party B then sues party A with the intent of having a judge still evaluate that same question, but now in the other direction: "would party A have had legal standing to sue party B?" — where in the case that party B wins that judgement, this would not only award damages to party B, but also have the same case-law impact as if party A had really sued party B, and lost.
      - rzzzt 2y ago
        In Kurt Denke's response he writes: > As for your requests for information, or for action, directed to me: I > would remind you that it is you, not I, who are making claims; and it > is you, not I, who must substantiate those claims. You have not done so. Which party would bear the burden of proof in step 3? Does it get reversed or stay as if the step 1 threat went to court?
- miki123211 2y ago
  Maybe writing that letter was a bad idea in the first place? It was good for Blue Jeans and for Monster, as they both avoided expensive litigation, but from a more general perspective, it would have been better if Monster thought Blue Jeans was an easy victim, sued and got its comeuppance.
kopirgan 2y ago
The last paragraph with upside downside comments are legendary Plus the threat to impose even bigger costs with anti trust violation claims! Need to imagine the face of the in-house counsel reading it.
- rendaw 2y ago
  But in the end did monster actually face any penalty at all? They threatened the guy, the guy said no, end of story. The bully moves on to threaten the next guy. The story insinuates lasting damage but it seems kind of subtle...
  - kopirgan 2y ago
    Lol it is not subtle at all - it basically says you will get pennies if you take us on and win, but if we win, you get screwed big time incl damages for anti-trust. Guess BJC was content with letting them just go away...but once this was generally known, it does reduce the value of those threats.
  - somat 2y ago
    Most importantly, it was also popularly published. So the critical but tricky to measure metrics now are "how much sales do we loose because we are now firmly labeled as a bully in peoples minds" and "how much potential licensing revenue have we lost because people know they don't need to fold immediately"
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      It is hard do say, though, because the market for Monster cables is pretty clearly people who came in off the street, read nothing, and picked the fanciest looking cable. By their nature they are immune to bad press, right?
lukan 2y ago
"There have been numerous times, since my exit from the practice of law and entry into the cable business, when I've been glad that I have a legal background, and this certainly was one of those; it meant that the inevitable surge in adrenalin manifested itself through careful legal review rather than through the intended panic." Channel your energy in the right direction ..
tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
In particular, I'd recommend looking at the full response. While the original article covers the plain-language juicy-sounding excerpts, the full letter to Monster also contains some artful legalese that even I as layman can appreciate: It starts with several pages worth of requests for information. I'm pretty sure those aren't actually requests for information - they're a threat. If Monster were to actually sue, he'd be entitled to these documents as part of discovery, so he's essentially saying "if you sue me, you'll spend a lot of money on discovery (and be forced to reveal stuff you'd rather not)". Sprinkled in are some suggestions of ethics violations on the side of Monster's lawyers, a hint at Monster's likely corporate tax evasion scheme (and the requirement to produce the material that proves the tax evasion in discovery), and the threat to break their racket in the last paragraph that kopirgan already pointed out. All this is even more impressive than the quoted part, and sadly omitted in the original blog post.
- szundi 2y ago
  [dead]
AceyMan 2y ago
Blue Jeans Cables was what I switched to towards the end of my serious audiophile days. Before that, I was set up with StraightWire mostly, but I respected Kimber Kables, though I never ended up getting any of their goods. Now tonearm cables are a whole different animal, and my pair was a mid-priced custom set though one of the high-end dealers — all substance, no flash => aka, not paying for an advertising budget & fancy packaging.
crazygringo 2y ago
Thank you! The original blog post sets up a story and then gives no ending.
eek2121 2y ago
Thanks! I actually did not like that OP did not include the full story, but rather a small part of it. I love reading stuff like this.

schumpeter 2y ago

You have to wonder what it is with companies having “monster” in their names that makes them such monsters. This story reminded me of the multi-year battle by Monster energy going after MonsterFishKeepers.com https://reefbuilders.com/2016/03/01/monster-fish-keepers-wins-battle-against-monster-energy-drink/ https://reefbuilders.com/2016/03/01/monster-fish-keepers-win...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ttyprintk 2y ago
Monster cables went after Monster Mini Golf rather than the categorically obvious option of advertizing on their go-karts or whatever.

stego-tech 2y ago

It was this story that clued me into BJC as an entity in the first place. Gladly shelled out a couple hundred bucks for solidly-built custom speaker interconnects a few years later with them, and have zero regrets. As far as legal tactics go, I’m very sympathetic to his position and wish more folks would fight to the finish instead of settling for nuisance values.

olelele 2y ago
After working with audio professionally I've developed a strong antipathy towards a lot of the audiophile industry. BJC has good prices and seem very legit in my eyes. The pricing seems to reflect actual production costs and not mumbo jumbo alignment in the copper fields...
- stego-tech 2y ago
  That’s my take as well. They used high quality cables from Belden when I bought mine, not some cheap Chinese knockoff. They’re also not focused on nonsense like “ethernet regenerators” for audio signals or “HDMI cleaners” for video. They’re just good, simple, solidly built cables that fulfill their intended functions. No snake oil, no BS. 10/10 will buy again when I’ve got a home and a rack for a bunch of fixed-length custom cabling.

ocdtrekkie 2y ago

So I clicked the first link to read about the actual claim, and I was floored by the author bio at the bottom: "Clint Deboer was terminated from Audioholics for misconduct on April 4th, 2014. He no longer represents Audioholics in any fashion." Gotta wonder how bad you gotta screw up to have your byline on every article you wrote permanently set to that.

shermantanktop 2y ago
Also gotta wonder if he might have sent a cease and desist about that bio.
ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
Sounds like a case of sour grapes, on the part of Audioholics. He seems to have done fairly well for himself, since then.
- ocdtrekkie 2y ago
  It's really hard to tell without more detail! I tried doing a bit of digging, but he was a really early staffer to join Audioholics, and was editor-in-chief when he was fired. He's editor-in-chief of another site now, which it looks like he founded. You probably have to do something pretty bad to get publicly fired for cause when you were the editor-in-chief, and him having a new site he made himself isn't exactly an assurance of innocence either. Just... kinda a wild random footnote on a link on an article from over a decade ago.
  - IncreasePosts 2y ago
    From a bunch of digging it appears that, perhaps, Clint set up/joined some sites that were similar enough to his employers, without telling them, and when they found out they took that as him trying to siphon users off of their site, and fired him. If this is true, whether that was wrong of Clint to do or not would depend on his contract.
  - nkurz 2y ago
    I think the answer is that he set up another site called Audiogurus that was advertising itself as being "Audioholics store". This didn't go over well. Here's an article about that hints at it: https://www.audioholics.com/news/audioholics-e-store-name-change https://www.audioholics.com/news/audioholics-e-store-name-ch... And here's a thread about it, which is admittedly hard to read because the "Audioholics" has been replaced the words "Bad Robot": https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/bad-robot.94519/ https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/bad-robot.9451...

RustyRussell 2y ago

OK, the whole "I am a lawyer" was next-levelled by this closing sentence: "Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it."

econ 2y ago
I always go with the short 1) excitement about going to court and 2) that I don't really care what it costs.

walrus01 2y ago

Previously, monster cable vs. using a coat hanger for a speaker wire. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&channel=entpr&q=monster+cable+or+coat+hanger https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&channel=ent...

harrison_clarke 2y ago
to be fair, monster cables do beat coat hangers these days (the only coat hangers i've seen lately are plastic or wood)
coin 2y ago
The reviews on the cables in question (Blue Jeans Cable) are wild. https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RYLMXICLLSJWC?ASIN=B00OJLNEOU https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RYLMXICLLSJWC?ASI... "Music was much more open with plenty of air around the instruments. Imaging was superb - greatly improved over previous cables that I used. The depth was substantially improved with great instrumental recognition from front to rear. In other words, the speakers managed to disappear and only the performances were remaining." "I had for the first time, heard tones and instruments that were previously hidden with other cables. Music sounded more alive - had more presence. Brass instruments now had a bite (yet with a rich, non-strident tone) that sounded as if you were there." "The bass tones improved dramatically, taking on a fuller (tighter with less bloat) than I had remembered with previous cables" I'd love to see how these people do with a double blind setup.
- Slow_Hand 2y ago
  Welcome to the world of audiophiles. This kind of hyperbole for the magical powers bestowed by even the smallest (or most dubious) accessories is a source of unending amusement for me, if it wasn't so foolish.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    My favorite quote: Music lovers buy hifi systems to listen to their music. Audiophiles buy music to listen to their hifi systems.

chrisweekly 2y ago

All bullies are cowards.

nerdile 2y ago
Agreed. Bschmidt###... who hurt you? Why is this your life?
- RandomBacon 2y ago
  I removed the numbers and looked up that username to try and figure out what was going on, but it seems to be an empty account from 2010. I feel sad for the person if they think this is the best use of their time. Re about "nobody sees these", only registered users with half a brain see them, and they're the ones who can easily filter out people acting like a child with nothing better to do. It's people not logged in who don't have "show dead" enabled that don't see it.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

kazinator 2y ago

I'm thinking, what are the odds that the president of some boutique audio cable company would be a litigator.

PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
Clearly, 100%

tqi 2y ago

Monster Cables is a name I hadn't thought about in ages... I mostly remember them as the company that tried to convince people that digital images would look better via a more expensive cable.

ostensible 2y ago
Well, there is now some truth to it. For example, low quality HDMI cable will may be only good enough for low bandwidth, that would limit refresh rate, and/or color fidelity (e.g. chroma subsampling) and/or resolution. So yea, “digital” cables are not immune to signal integrity issues, and better cables do perform better. I understand that monster takes this to the next level of bullshit — but in principle, yes, more expensive cable cable can yield better quality. Or should I say — crappy cable can result in quality degradation
- avidiax 2y ago
  > So yea, “digital” cables are not immune to signal integrity issues, and better cables do perform better. Better cables perform better, but not at all in the way that Monster suggests. Gold plating and oxygen-free copper doesn't matter. Any certified HDMI cable will operate at least to its certification, whether or not it is gold plated with triple shielded conductors. I wish the HDMI forum would officially deprecate all older HDMI standards, so that companies like Monster couldn't advertise that their cables provide "better color, higher resolution, better sound", etc. All the cables in the store would be 8k HDMI 2.2 cables, or they wouldn't be allowed to use the HDMI trademark.
  - whatevaa 2y ago
    Nah, cables oftenly can lie about it's certification, especially when it comes to resistance to interference. This is how you get "bad cable".
  - kbutler 2y ago
    Besides interference and lying about specs, cables can be designed for durability or not. I buy cheap cables from China. They generally work-to-spec out of the...plastic bag, but may not handle frequent plug/unplug cycles or any sort of rough treatment.

CalChris 2y ago

Reminds me of when Caterpillar (trucks+tractors) sued Cat and Cloud Coffee (coffee) in Santa Cruz for trademark infringement. https://www.ksbw.com/article/cat-and-cloud-coffee-in-santa-cruz-facing-trademark-controversy-against-caterpillar-inc/27595279 https://www.ksbw.com/article/cat-and-cloud-coffee-in-santa-c...

jemmyw 2y ago
What happened? This is reporting on the first round but I can't find a follow-up on how things went. Did Caterpillar back down or did Cat and Cloud lose their apparel trademark?
- CalChris 2y ago
  Seems to have just faded away. Their name is the same.
- hamandcheese 2y ago
  A quick google seems to indicate that they are still doing business under that same name. https://catandcloud.com/ https://catandcloud.com/
  - jemmyw 2y ago
    Yah but it was only the apparel side that Caterpillar threatened, so they may have won or given up and stopped selling clothes. Looking at their online store they don't have anything with Cat printed on it right now.
dehrmann 2y ago
I heard a story about the CEO of Maxim Integrated complaining about Maxim Magazine and wanting to sue them. The lawyer got a box of chips and a magazine, opened to the centerfold, and said "no one's confusing this for that."
- jppope 2y ago

npunt 2y ago

In my head canon Monster Cables pivoted to become Monster Energy and justified it to shareholders as 'we're still in the business of getting people wired'

jaredandrews 2y ago

I had no idea Monster sold anything other than over priced guitar cables... About 15 yeard ago, I knew a guy who exclusively bought Monster... well he had two of them, one from the guitar to the pedal board and another from the board to the amp. But it wasn't because of their alleged improved sound quality or whatever, it was because they had a lifetime warranty. Dude had bought two monster 1/4inch cables and gotten them replaced "for free" like 5 times. From what I can tell they got rid of the lifetime warranty around 2018 and have mostly transitioned to licensing their name.

brendoelfrendo 2y ago
I definitely got upsold on a Monster cable when I bought my first guitar on the back of that lifetime warranty. Joke's on me, I guess; the cable is almost 20 years old and still working, never had to use the warranty even once. I need to take worse care of my things.
- metalman 2y ago
  Guitar cable?, ya...noooo cordless my droogys prolly cheaper too did a custom stealth mod to one guitar where the transmitter, plugs into 1/4 jack,under the back cover nice thing is that its possible to turn an amp up to face peeling loudness, and step back, and not get hurt, got to watch for things vibrating off of shelves though and are you kidding me?, I know that as a guitarer there are cumulative cognitive effects, but when a fucking speaker cable outfit starts suing people, something has definitly gone off the rails but oh ya, there are people in jail for "cheating" on video games, but somehow there are government weed stores tone is in the hands
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    I prefer a cable in my active bass, because it's one less set of batteries to think about, and that guy has a pretty hot output. Analog distortion is way better than the sounds you get when you saturate a digital signal path, heh.
  - Frederation 2y ago

ghshephard 2y ago

I read the letter and it looked like pretty much the first negotiating position of any lawyer. Regardless of what you think, convince the opposition that you are prepared to litigate to the end of time.

noduerme 2y ago
Just speaking as someone who's not a lawyer, but who grew up in a family of lawyers: This isn't so much a negotiating position as a rigorous way of thinking about everything. It's also the default position if e.g. your child asks you to buy them a book, let them sleep over at a friend's house, etc. (Something an ex-girlfriend of mine categorized as "child abuse", whereas I think it was a fantastic education). Cross-examination on a subject doesn't mean an automatic "no". It's more like: If you want to use X amount of personal capital here, to achieve your ends, then persuade me that you're right using logic and proof, not threats or acting out. It's kind of a Jedi mind training, and a wonderful shield against both bullying and idiocy in the wider world. Because at the end of the day, it is a superpower to be a lawyer, or even to think like one.
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  “You’re increasing the volume of your voice but not the logic of your argument.”

m463 2y ago

I remember buying audio gear (think receiver, amplifier, cd player) and being the focus of the upsell for 2-5x more expensive monster cables. Once I patiently explained that a cable shouldn't matter for digital as long as the bits got there, and seeing the young sales guy pause and then "get it". And I got the (relatively) cheap cables. Also speaker wire. You can get perfectly good copper cables for less, probably in a thicker gauge wire.

bolognafairy 2y ago
> Once I patiently explained that a cable shouldn't matter for digital as long as the bits got there. Emphasis mine. As someone that sold AV equipment, including cables, in the late ‘00s / early ‘10s, nerds that misunderstood the nuances of this were the single worst group of customers to work with. You could see them coming a mile away. By the time “gold-plated HDMI cables are a scam” gets down to their level of pseudo-intellect, it becomes “all cables with the same physical connectors are the same”. Patently untrue, and 99.9% of the time they won’t have any of it. Some of the most snide, belittling, insulting shit ever sneered at me in a professional context has been from some socks-and-sandals nerd practically accusing me of genocide because I dare suggested that the cheapest HDMI cable on the shelf explicitly doesn’t support whatever insanely expensive TV, blu-ray player, or whatever else, that they’ve purchased. 15+ years later, purchasing the ‘right’ HDMI cable is if anything a more Byzantine process. Made worse by the fact that any conversation on the topic inevitably has at last one person butting in to say “they’re all just cables bro aha”.
- jpgvm 2y ago
  I wish HDMI would die as a standard. The TV folk won't that happen though, controlling HDMI allows them to control the ecosystem by extension. Would be nice if the EU could step in an make DisplayPort the required connection and protocol like they did for the USB-C port for charging.
  - endgame 2y ago
    Especially since the HDMI people have made open-source video drivers effectively impossible.

hagen_dogs 2y ago

[flagged]

PontifexCipher 2y ago
What does this add to the conversation?
- snvzz 2y ago
  Noise.

acobster 2y ago

Perhaps the coolest way I've ever seen someone say "I'd love to see you try."

dkh 2y ago

I want to be this man when I grow up

noduerme 2y ago

>> developed an intense frustration with insurance carriers who would settle meritless claims for nuisance value when the better long-term view would have been to fight against vexatious litigation as a matter of principle I got let out of 2-3 months of jury duty on an asbestos case by saying basically the same thing. Voir dire is fun, particularly if you manage to scare the bejezus out of both sides.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

cwillu 2y ago

Some followup available at https://web.archive.org/web/20080503164740/www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/interview_kurt_denke_man_who_shut_monster_cable_up https://web.archive.org/web/20080503164740/www.freesoftwarem... *edit to fix link; in the future, maybe tell me it broke instead of reflexively downvoting

nukem222 2y ago

I don't quite understand the point of litigating businesses in civil court if existential threats are excluded from judgement. What is the reasoning behind a fine being sufficient to incentivize following the law when you can make so much more money not following the law? I also don't understand what the point of shareholders and board members are if they can't be personally held liable for their investments violating civil laws. What is the fucking rationale behind that? Why must we baby shareholders and be cruel to workers despite the latter providing 100% of society's value?

lyu07282 2y ago
Is this a rhetorical question? Cause capitalism, everybody loves capitalism.

seanhunter 2y ago

I was once co-head of a tech company that had an "i" in the title. Like a bajillion other companies our logo was basically just the company's name in a particular font and we turned the dot above the "i" into a little circle in a different colour. So far so not very surprising. A few months in we got a cease-and-desist from a company who claimed (and I'm not making this up) to have a trademark on the idea of making the dot of an "i" into a little circle in a different colour, and said that the trade dress of our logo was infringing because their logo was just their company name in a (different) font with the dot on the "i" being a circle in a different colour. I wrote back and asked them to clarify that it was their contention that that was a trademark and making it very clear I would fight it and we had no intention of changing anything. They disappeared. It's really important not to feed this nonsense by caving to the trolls.

fmajid 2y ago

Blue Jeans Cable is outstanding, and an oasis of sanity and competence in an audiophile market saturated with snake oil peddlers.

VoodooJuJu 2y ago

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bigtex 2y ago

When I worked at Best Buy in the late 90's, we were trained on the virtues of Monster AV cables, which they pushed because they were an accessory with high margins. I recall one time when a sales manager cut open a cheaper version of some cables and discussed how it had less wiring and insulation, which I think he did with Monster cable to show the drastic difference. I think they had like 3 levels of quality, the cheap stuff, the mid-grade stuff and Monster. Even though I worked there I only ever bought the mid-grade because the quality to price ratio was great.

mmaunder 2y ago

So he’s going to aggressively not let them land any punches? Sometimes a bully needs an ass kicking.

1970-01-01 2y ago

Good lawyers are expensive because they're worth it.

bachmidt1007 2y ago

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SeanLuke 2y ago

Meh. If this was the wrong guy to threaten, then he would have sued to overturn their design patents. Instead he just told them where they could stick it. That's done all the time.

spacedcowboy 2y ago

Or you could screw up so monumentally that the “case” (it was never actually brought) becomes an actual meme. I give you the case of Arkell vs Pressdram [1]. I have actually seen a response to a business threat which ended with “I refer you to the response in the case of Arkell vs Pressdram”… 1: https://proftomcrick.com/2014/04/29/arkell-v-pressdram-1971/ https://proftomcrick.com/2014/04/29/arkell-v-pressdram-1971/

psd1 2y ago
I've used it against a frivolous parking charge. It's fairly well known in the UK and I've always enjoyed Private Eye

Nifty3929 2y ago

It's not that they picked the wrong guy to threaten - it's just that this particular one won't work out for Monster. No worries, on to the next. If 1 guy out of 100 fights back, and then you just leave that one alone, you're still a big winner.

Pikamander2 2y ago
Yeah, the title made me assume that he won a countersuit or got the company fined or something. In reality, he just sent them a slightly-snarky response to their flimsy cease-and-desist, and they decided not to go forward with a lawsuit, which is probably how it would have played out anyway.
- Etherlord87 2y ago
  I just shared this story with friends, and one of them, a musician, says he will now never again buy monster cables even though they are thought of the best quality. So there is a negative outcome of this to the company.

belter 2y ago

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seattle_spring 2y ago

Ha, I love that this is about Blue Jeans Cables. I actually just bought some of their stuff this week-- really incredibly well made cables. Their website looks like it hasn't been updated in the 90s, which leads me to believe that cable quality and website quality are inversely correlated.

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago

Nice dig at the supreme court on their payments page. Kurt hasn't lost his mojo. https://www.bluejeanscable.com/paymentinfo.htm https://www.bluejeanscable.com/paymentinfo.htm

vayup 2y ago

Has a "...what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you." energy to it.

nosequel 2y ago

I've been a fan of blue jeans cables for 15+ years, I'm so glad they are the subject of this post. Blue Jeans just makes high quality stuff for solid prices and no BS.

watersb 2y ago

I bought a pair of utterly ludicrous Monster stereo speaker cables off eBay a coyotes of decades ago, when I was putting together a home audio system. Audio stereophile-wise, I could replace them with zip wire (two conductor, twisted 24-gauge cable). But they wouldn't have the neat nylon braided jacket, or shove things out of the way when I'm moving the speakers. It was stupid but fun to add them to my setup, and now I'm glad I have them. I also have some interconnect cables from Blue Jeans Cable, that fellow is awesome. If Monster is suing him, may they burn in court.

samgranieri 2y ago

Aw man, how the heck did I miss this back in 2008? I bought some monster cables that year and had I of know about this, I would have declined. seeing this pugnacious lawyer write an excellent response has me considering buying from blue jeans.

jb3689 2y ago

Musicians picked Monster because they were reliable and had an excellent replacement policy not because of brand ego. The Darn Tough of cables at least in terms of policies