The complete story: https://www.bluejeanscable.com/legal/mcp/index.htm
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.
“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.”
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-revi...
[more neutral] https://musictech.com/news/gear/tekton-audio-allegedly-threa...
> 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.
>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.
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/jac...
I wish all companies took such an approach. You catch more flies with honey, and all that.
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.
Then again, maybe there’s less hate for HOA’s here than in other spaces. This is typical HOA behavior!
Also, my parents still live there, so I didn't want to start any more drama. In fact, they sold their previous home and built a new place in the same community, while it would have been far cheaper to build outside the HOA.
All this to say that, while the internet is full of genuine examples of nightmare HOAs, my parents' HOA is normally run by a few retired folks who mind their own business.
If plaintiffs had to pay the fees for defense prior to settlement or judgement, most of this would disappear. Sadly, nobody has the balls to implement that.
* The "J" stands for "Good Work!"
This is the new design: https://www.amazon.com/-/de/gp/aw/d/1621050521/
The toy company claimed their products were parodies, which have heightened protection from such claims, but the Court didn’t buy it.
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/22-148
Fun oral argument for an extended dog walk; you get to hear the justices argue about scatological jokes and whiskey bottle shapes.
JD’s advocate, Lisa Blatt, is also reliably a hoot.
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
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.
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.
> 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.
If someone threatens to sue you, you can sue them to establish that their suit is groundless.
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.
Channel your energy in the right direction ..
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.
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.
Guess BJC was content with letting them just go away...but once this was generally known, it does reduce the value of those threats.