Back in April we had occasion to note the aggressive intellectual property stance of a company called Monster Cable, which had drawn a memorably tart riposte from the recipient of one of its nastygrams. We didn’t catch a wider aspect of the story, noted by Engadget in May, which is that Monster Cable goes around demanding that a wide range of businesses stop using the word “monster” in contexts far removed from its own line of work (audio/video cables); it reportedly has demanded cash from such businesses in exchange for calling off its lawyers. One of its targets, a miniature golf operation called Monster Mini Golf, is now trying to bring the story to public attention (TechDirt, Dec. 3).
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They may be aggressive, but they make the best guitar cables bar none.
It would seem that Monster refers to the price of their products. Anyone who buys their cables at those prices is crazy.
So I can find a new job and wire up my speakers? This is confusing…I didn’t know the job board was in the A/V products industry. [satire]
The word cable has been there for a long time since the 20th century.
There is a small chain of sushi restaurants in Manhattan called “Monster Sushi.” They were originally called “Godzilla Sushi,” but the holders of the rights to “Godzilla” sued them, and they changed their name to “Monster.”
Guess they’d better “d” up again…
[…] WSJ’s page one is on the Monster Cable story, covered here a while […]