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Apple Revokes Monster's 'Made for iPhone' License Following Beats Lawsuit
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I think this is when it gets bad for customers. Once apple owns most types of companies and doesnt need others, its like living in russia where a company cant speak out about apple, which is way to powerful for the good of the industry.
Um, that's true for laws as well. Laws have to be interpreted and imposed by courts. Just because something is illegal does not mean you'll instantly receive punishment. You have to go through the court system and a judge will interpret and impose the law during the trial.
You either have freedom or you don't. We have less and less each day because people with opinions like you expressed think that freedom can be regulated. You see we don't need regulations, except in very few instances, because Capitalism is capable of controlling it. But you have to give capitalism a chance, something that most people are not currently willing to do. The regulations don't mean anything, all the government said here is that ATT& has to pay the bad company tax. The people that were harmed were not compensated in any way. But those regulations sure did work ---- NOT.
If people vote with their wallet then we don't need rules and regulations to fix bad company behavior. If Monsters agreement with Apple allows Apple to cancel the agreement, then too bad for Monster. They should not have agreed in the first place. If the agreement does not allow the cancelation then Apple should be subject to the terms of agreement. Nothing else matters, except that we are not longer living in a country of laws matter.
It is exactly about whether Apple likes them or not. Why should Apple be forced to have a business relationship with someone they don't like. Do you want to be forced to be friends with someone you don't like. No you want to be free to chose your friends, and the same should apply to Apple, they should be free to chose their business partners.
no but for this utopian way of thinking to work it requires nearly everyone to be very informed of what is happening and business laws. i think thats quite the overhead for customers buying cables but maybe thats just me.
as for your second paragraph there is nothing similar between friendships and quite a lot of business relationships. what you are defending and proposing is removing legal remedies from everyone but the few giants because they can take the hit (even if its very unfair and pure spite).
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Freedom would be an open standard where anyone who meets the technical criteria can submit for certification without fear or favour - not a forelock tugging contest where you're obliged to drop entirely unrelated and pre-existing legal beefs you have with what (is now) one of their subsidiaries in ordert to maintain certification. That's retaliation not freedom.
Which charging cable?? Do you mean the lightning cable? Because it obviously doesn't "cost pennies" or the Chinese would be selling the knock offs for a lot cheaper than they do. They're still a fair few quid and they're rubbish. 3rd party MiFi cables are cheaper than Apple's granted, but we're talking of about £12 instead of £20. Not quite the £5 to £160 of Monster.
Amazing, How people defend Apples predatory practices. If someone did this to Apple there would
be a near riot here. Ok so Apple sells a $5 lightning connector for $30.
That's not a "privilege" to use Apple's trademark. It's a business deal and a contract (i.e. the "license" mentioned in the thread title) and I'm sure Monster paid a lot of money to get a contract. If Monster didn't do anything wrong in regards to making headphones for Apple then Apple has clearly retaliated for some other unrelated reason to that contract. Did Monster make bad headphones? No. What did Monster do wrong? It seems to me they were the one wronged, not Apple if their lawsuit is true and that is something that needs to be settled in court, not by Apple throwing a hissy fit and trying to screw them over any way they can.
Thus, yours is not a better metaphor. A BETTER metaphor would be a company firing me for filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against them. I allege they did something ILLEGAL and in return they FIRE me to get back at me. In other words, IF Apple did Monster WRONG legally, then they have NO BUSINESS "firing" them from their licensing program. Having a product license agreement with Monster does not give Apple carte blanche to screw Monster up their wazoo on stock related to one of their acquisitions (i.e. Beats Audio). If IBM fired me for filing sexual harassment charges against one of their employees (e.g. my supervisor), then they are firing me for something they or one of their employees did wrong. WTF does that have to do with MY behavior at their company? NOTHING, unless you are one of those right-wing types that think a business should be able to fire people for any reason they damn well feel like including not cooperating with said boss wanting to bend me over their desk. If anyone has sullied Apple's reputation here, it's Apple themselves and it sounds like they deserve it if what they did is true. If anything, Monster's name may be sullied by associating themselves with Apple, not the other way around. I think Monster should be able to sue for wrongful breach of contract, if at all possible.
This is the problem with companies and people having too much power. They ABUSE it and do evil things with it. Monster isn't the one that should be punished here if what they allege is true, it's Apple. If Apple has a beef with monster, it should be settled in court, not with arbitrary license revocation because they don't like something Monster did in unrelated matters.
Doing whatever you want whenever you want might be considered "freedom" but lacking any restraints what-so-ever would mean your neighbor could kill your spouse or parents because you let your grass grow a half inch higher than he happens to like and he wanted to "encourage" you to cut it lower. Under such "freedom" the government could do nothing about it since it's his right to do anything he damn well feels like doing without restraint. You could do the same and before you know it, everyone is killing everyone. I believe that is called ANARCHY and in the United States of America, at least, there are limits to your freedom (ideally) based on ethical/moral laws. Your right to "freedom" can not impinge on my rights and vice versa and I have the right to be free from malicious and arbitrary harassment. Getting angry because you found out your employee doesn't like pizza when you consider it the food of the gods is not a legitimate reason to fire them.
You show no signs of comprehension of the REASON for having laws in a civilized society. Move to Russia and try some of their freedom out and see if you like it better. I'd be careful about criticizing Mr. Putin over there, though. People who criticize him have a funny way of ending up dead. I suppose that's his "freedom" from having to hear their opinion, eh?
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I was using the term "privilege" in the legal sense. As opposed to a "right." And I'm sure the contract you refer to permits Apple to cancel, and as a result Monster doesn't have to keep paying for each unit it ships with an MFi logo.
So what? If I am your university professor, and you ask me for a letter of recommendation, but you've sued me for some unrelated matter, I am not likely to give you that letter of recommendation. I don't care if you are the greatest student ever; I am not required to lend my name and support to your endeavors when you are suing me.
But Apple/Beats isn't alleged to have done anything illegal. It is not illegal to break a contract. Beats was sued, not criminally indicted. These are very different things. Also, there are laws against the type of retaliation you mention. There are no laws against what Apple is alleged to be doing.
But Apple is not alleged to have wronged Monster legally. They are alleged to have violated contracts. Breaking a contract is not illegal.
It almost certainly DOES give Apple carte blanche. Just as Monster has a right to sue to force Beats/Apple to live up to its contract or pay them, so does Apple have the right to enforce its own MFI contract and drop Monster per the terms of that agreement.
I think "right" is a better word to define contracts that are signed. If you break such a contract, you are in legal violation of it. A contract is not a "suggestion", after all. Either Apple's contract with Monster allows arbitrary and downright malicious cancellations of the contract for any reason it feels like or it spells out specific reasons. Having not seen this contract posted, I cannot make assumptions about it.
You, however, seem to have read it based on your supposition Apple can do anything it feels like doing. Just because Monster has not apparently responded legally in the past 24 hours (that we've seen) doesn't mean it won't if their lawyers conclude it was an illegal cancellation of the contract. While most software companies feel they can cancel your license for any reason imaginable, that is probably not the case in a typical large business deal where a lot of money is being spent or no contracts would ever be signed.
Regardless, however, my personal opinion is that Apple's decision makes them look pretty damn bad, like a spoiled kid who throws a tantrum the moment he doesn't get his way. You can't easily repair a bad reputation so it's best not to get one in the first place, IMO.
I have reason to believe my characterization of the MFi contract is correct, given other Apple agreements I have seen, and still other Apple contracts that are publicly available as part of various court filings.
Amazing, How people defend Apples predatory practices. If someone did this to Apple there would
be a near riot here. Ok so Apple sells a $5 lightning connector for $30.
Which is pretty reasonable mark up for most official products - and again, how its "worse than Monster" charging $300 for an HDMI cable I'll never know.
Lets just agree, Apple's accessories are over priced. Their computers and hardware are generally the best in the business and very well made value for month. Monster sell snake oil for really really silly money, as do Beats (though i've no idea if they got any better after stopping working with Monster, they were the perfect fit). There are other companies in the Monster line of things - selling difficult to disprove marketing myths, Apple most certainly are not one.
Remember this lawsuit wasn't against Apple until they bought beats. They knew about it and it wouldn't surprise me if Apple used this in negotiations with beats. Take our offer and we can make this go away.
Like it or not Apple wields a big sword in the tech industry. They have the power to break smaller companies. Samsung being a big exception.
They use Samsung because they need them. And Samsung is big enough to push back.
Like it or not Apple wields a big sword in the tech industry. They have the power to break smaller companies. Samsung being a big exception.
They use Samsung because they need them. And Samsung is big enough to push back.
You show no signs of comprehension of the REASON for having laws in a civilized society. Move to Russia and try some of their freedom out and see if you like it better. I'd be careful about criticizing Mr. Putin over there, though. People who criticize him have a funny way of ending up dead. I suppose that's his "freedom" from having to hear their opinion, eh?
What a silly response, I never said we did not need laws, We just don't need laws to make up for common sense. Why? Because they don't work. Yes, we have way too many laws. That does not mean we don't need laws, it means exactly what I said, "We have too many laws!" It is really hard to live one day today without breaking some law someplace.
Laws today are just a way for powerful people to inflict pain on individuals. Laws for company's today are just a "bad company" tax. No one goes to jail, and the people that are harmed don't get the money, because it all goes to the government.
What that proves is our government is corrupt and people aren't willing to do anything about it. They keep sending the same criminals to Capitol Hill every election....
Monster? Always overpriced with snake oil claims. Apple? Always overpriced with fanatical users that between them and the price scare away a lot of ordinary folk. It sounds like a match made in Heaven, right? Sadly, it doesn't work that way with business or politics (as the Tea Party proved to the few moderates left on that side). Greed always kills partnerships in the end. It's why even in fiction like Star Wars the Sith could never beat the Jedi despite more power. They always turned on each other.
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I don't particularly care for Monster stuff, but at the same time I really hope Apple gets taken down a notch soon.
Apple traditionally hates competition and has often acted as a patent troll, squashing smaller would be competitors with the threat of legal action, or by using its status as an 800lbs gorilla within the marketplace.
It's irrelevant whether Monster is overpriced. So are many of Apple's products, but I keep buying them because of the added value of good design. What is disturbing is that Apple is using its market power to squash what may be a perfectly legitimate lawsuit, by punishing Monster and terminating a contract.
As to Beats, here is a good summary of the garbage that Apple bought for $3BN:
How It’s Made Series: Beats By Dre
"I estimate that the COGS without labor or shipping is $16.89 - yet Beats is able to successfully retail these headphones for $199+."
Apple traditionally hates competition and has often acted as a patent troll, squashing smaller would be competitors with the threat of legal action, or by using its status as an 800lbs gorilla within the marketplace.
It's irrelevant whether Monster is overpriced. So are many of Apple's products, but I keep buying them because of the added value of good design. What is disturbing is that Apple is using its market power to squash what may be a perfectly legitimate lawsuit, by punishing Monster and terminating a contract.
As to Beats, here is a good summary of the garbage that Apple bought for $3BN:
How It’s Made Series: Beats By Dre
"I estimate that the COGS without labor or shipping is $16.89 - yet Beats is able to successfully retail these headphones for $199+."
Haven't you seen all those pictures and videos of people standing in line for iPhones?
When they have that kind of market share, yes, they do should allow anyone to partner with them. They are no longer a 7% of a market.