Hey all,
If you read my blog at all, then there's a pretty good chance you make at least some of your living by interacting in some way with a computer.
And if you've spent any time with a computer as a working professional, then you know how maddening they can be to work with. I'm a gear head. I build my own workstations, and even I spend a significant portion of time "under the hood". This is time spent NOT WORKING, but fixing stuff...
Case in point, over the last month the main computer monitor of my dual screen set up has been acting really flaky. As it would warm up, it would blink on and off. It started out as an occasional flicker, but has progressed to a nearly constant on for a couple seconds, off for a couple seconds light show. Like I said. Maddening.
I tried my normal "jiggle the handle" approach to fixing things: made sure the DVI cables were attached properly, double checked the power cable, even double checked my video card and reloaded graphics drivers.
I was pretty much set on ordering a new monitor. Until, on a whim, I swapped the cables on my dual monitor setup. The monitor which had been acting fine was now flickering, and the monitor which had been flickering was now solid.
Instead of dropping $200 on a decent monitor, I bought a $7.50 cable.
Several tech/gadget blogs and news sites are reporting on the back and forth legal letters between Monster and Blue Jeans Cable. BJC is a very small company that makes A/V cables, and as far as I can tell they manufacture in the USA (woot). Apparently Monster thinks that only they should be allowed to produce shielded RCA cables. They've sent a C&D letter to BJC over what they claim is patent infringement on their design.
Let's take a look: Huh?
[sarcasm] Gee, I had a REALLY hard time figuring out which one was the Monster cable (what with the one cable having the BIG MONSTER LABEL on it)[/sarcasm]. Picture courtesy of Gizmodo.
Well the owner of Blue Jeans just happens to be a retired copyright lawyer, and his 3200 WORD response to Monster's letter is both brutal and pants-wettingly hysterical. I wont quote the whole letter here, but this was my favorite bit:
I will also point out to you that if you do choose to undertake litigation, your "upside" is tremendously limited. If you somehow managed, despite the formidable obstacles in your way, to obtain a finding of infringement, and if you were successful at recovering a large licensing fee--say, ten cents per connector--as the measure of damages, your recovery to date would not reach four figures. On the downside, I will advance defenses which, if successful, will substantially undermine your future efforts to use these patents and marks to threaten others with these types of actions; as you are of course aware, it is easier today for your competitors to use collateral estoppel offensively than it ever has been before. Also, there is little doubt that making baseless claims of trade dress infringement and design patent infringement is an improper business tactic, which can give rise to unfair competition claims, and for a company of Monster's size, potential antitrust violations with treble damages and attorneys' fees.
So to wrap up this already WAY too long post. I just started watching today's Tekzilla, and Patrick Norton had quite a bit to say about how he felt about the situation. He says boycott, and who am I to disagree. I've been tired of their price gouging for years, and every time I see gold plated, $60, six foot USB cables, it makes me want to hurt kittens. As soon as I'm done with this post I will be removing all Monster products from Some Audio Store.
Check out what Patrick had to say (very beginning of the show):
I would highly encourage anyone looking for A/V equipment to seriously consider ANY alternative to Monster. Blue Jeans is fighting the good fight, I've always had very positive experiences with Monoprice, and for you recording folk I think Mogami Microphone cables are some of the best XLR cables you can get your hands on, and George L makes fantastic instrument cables at very reasonable prices.
And if you're really in a tight spot, Monster cables sound about as good as a wire coat hanger(wire coat hangers soon to be really expensive at Best Buy), so there you go... ***UPDATE 4/19/08*** My blogging pal Brandon Drury is joining in on the boycott as well. He runs the Recording Review, which is an excellent source for recording information, especially those wanting to get into engineering. You can check out his boycott blog post here: I Will Never Buy Another Monster Cable someaudioguy some audio guy voice over voiceover vo demo production animation recording acting producing equipment microphones cables engineering
Hey all,
I tried my normal "jiggle the handle" approach to fixing things: made sure the DVI cables were attached properly, double checked the power cable, even double checked my video card and reloaded graphics drivers.
