Man, if only there was a popular curmudgeonly website that attracted people from all over the political spectrum where the host could run a little list down one side with names of companies not to support and links to the blog posts that explain the reason for the listing. Man, that would be great . . .

Don't know if you followed all the links of this story to the letter from the founder of Blue Jeans Cables (former lawyer) to Monster Cables after an attempt at similar type legal Bullying, but here are some highlights:

"Let me begin by stating, without equivocation, that I have no interest whatsoever in infringing upon any intellectual property belonging to Monster Cable. Indeed, the less my customers think my products resemble Monster's, in form or in function, the better.

"I am "uncompromising" in the most literal sense of the word. If Monster Cable proceeds with litigation against me I will pursue the same merits-driven approach; I do not compromise with bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds.

"I assume that Monster Cable International, Ltd., in Bermuda, listed on these patents, is an IP holding company and that Monster Cable's principal US entity pays licensing fees to the Bermuda corporation in order to shift income out of the United States and thereby avoid paying United States federal income tax on those portions of its income; my request for these licensing agreements is specifically intended to include any licensing agreements, including those with closely related or sham entities, within or without the Monster Cable "family," and without regard to whether those licensing agreements are sham transactions for tax shelter purposes only...

"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.

That dude rocks!!!

Monster Cable is well known in audio circles to be litigious bastards, because they want to uphold the premise that their products are so far superior to everyone else's.

Reality is, they are not, and never have been. Monster just managed to get Best Buy to say so, and everyone has been following suit. For the most part, unless doing things that really shouldn't be done with low voltage wire, cable is cable. A $70 6-foot cable isn't going to be appreciably different than a $20 cable for 99.9% of installations, given the same connectors and applications.

They know it too. Protect the brand, and the brand keeps selling overpriced copper. Let the brand fall, and everyone starts buying whatever works. Can't kill the golden goose, now can we?

Apprently they're too chickens**t to take on the Monster.com job posting website.