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While you were drinking your eggnog or otherwise enjoying your holidays, the Grinch stole all the good cheer from Monster LLC and owner Noel Lee when a jury in the case of Monster LLC v. Beats, et al agreed with Beats and ordered Monster and Lee to pay them $7,916,201.64 as reimbursement for their legal expenses.
The fat lady hasn’t sung yet, but it’s pretty much all over for Monster LLC and Noel Lee’s lawsuit against Beats Electronics LLC, Andre Young (a/k/a Dr. Dre), Jimmy Iovine, Paul D. Wachter (a Beats director), HTC America Holding, Inc and Does 1-25 (defendants to be named later). LA Superior Court Judge William F. Fahey has dismissed Monster’s lawsuit in its entirety, and has scheduled a trial that is now only on the claims by the defendants against Monster for attorneys fees and other costs.
It’s been ten months now since Beats Electronics, LLC won their motion to transfer the lawsuit brought against them by Monster, LLC, from San Mateo courts up in Northern California to their home turf of Los Angeles – a big win that reduces their costs and increases their comfort. But if Beats thought that their hometown courts would give them an advantage by being more favorable to their position in this case – they got a rude awakening earlier this month, when the LA judge offered a mixed ruling on several issues that mostly went against Beats’ desires.
Just days after Apple, Inc. announced its plans to attempt to reassert its leading role in the music distribution and streaming businesses, we learn from the New York Times that two powerful state attorneys general in New York and Connecticut have launched an investigation into Apple’s music licensing practices. The purpose of the investigation is to determine if Apple has broken any antitrust laws in cutting deals that allegedly restrict music industry providers from offering their content on a free basis with other services.
We first told you about Monster, LLC and CEO “Head Monster” Noel Lee filing a lawsuit against Beats, LLC alleging fraudulent practices back in January, in a post that was titled in part “Risky Business.” Perhaps now Monster is getting a taste of the riskiness of taking matters to court as they have lost their first battle, on the first issue – where the case would be heard.
As the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) kicked off yesterday in Las Vegas, attorneys for Monster, LLC and owner Noel Lee were busy filing a lawsuit in a California Superior court against Beats Electronics, LLC, Andre Young (Beats founder better known as Dr. Dre), Paul D. Wachter (a Beats director), Jimmy Iovine (Beats founder), and HTC (a Taiwanese company that allegedly at one time owned a majority interest in Beats). Multiple published reports carried the rather salacious claims by Monster and “Head Monster” Noel Lee about the allegedly nefarious business practices of Beats, its founders, certain directors, and some of its partners.
When the history of Monster Products is written some day in the future, there will be many legitimate highlights for their historian to ponder. First and foremost among these will be the fact that CEO Noel Lee (known as the Head Monster) virtually single-handedly created an industry when in the late 70s he popularized step-up, higher quality speaker cables that independent specialty retailers pushed like crazy over zip cord because it was much more profitable for them (and for Lee). And even though Monster Cable was more expensive for consumers, a clever Monster-created retail display demonstrated to them that they could indeed hear the difference with their own ears.
But we’re pretty certain one scene will not make Monster’s corporate history highlight reel – the company’s failure to continue to capitalize on its partnership with Beats by Dr. Dre. That partnership dissolved some two-plus years ago…with Beats going on to be purchased by Apple recently for $3.2 billion. Monster’s share of that eye-popping windfall: $0.
Spotify, the popular music sharing app, announced today that it will offer streamed music to smartphones for free (ad-supported), starting today. Spotify has long offered this capability on desktop computers for free (again supported by advertising), but had required a paid subscription (ad free) for mobile devices. Now…everything changes.
The company also announced that it has exclusively licensed the rights to stream music from rock icons Led Zeppelin…also starting today.
How big has Beats Electronics, LLC become? Big enough to warrant a visit by Apple, Inc. CEO Tim Cook to discuss a potential partnership in Beat’s new streaming music service tentatively code-named Daisy. And big enough to relatively easily obtain $60 million in financing from investors looking to help it get Daisy off the ground.
