Credit: Denise Truscello/ WireImage.com
Monster is coming after Beats by Dr. Dre with a hefty lawsuit after the company claims Dre “betrayed” Monster CEO Noel Lee and stole the company’s property.
Monster filed the lawsuit in San Mateo Superior Court on Tuesday and hit Beats with a laundry list of complaints including “fraud and deceit,” “breach of duty of trust and confidence,” “unfair competition” and “aiding and abetting fraud.”
Dr. Dre may be the face behind what is perhaps today’s most popular brand of headphones, but Monster is the company responsible for designing the product.
What seemed to be a match made in entrepreneurial heaven soon turned into a hellish fallout and a less than amicable split between Beats and Monster.
It was back in 2012 that the tensions reached an all time high and Beats walked out on their business deal with Monster before setting up shop elsewhere.
The problem, according to Monster’s lawsuit, is that they set up shop using the products Monster designed.
On the surface, it certainly seems like Monster would deserve some cut of Beats’ massive profits but nobody really knows what went on behind closed doors.
To the average consumer, it isn’t clear whether or not Beats really ripped Monster off or if this is the result of poor business management on both parties.
Gizmodo’s Sam Biddle explained that Monster is indeed responsible for getting Beats Electronics “alive and shipping headphones” but added that handing out permanent ownership to Dr. Dre and co-founder Jimmy Iovine may seal the company’s fate.
“Monster solidified an agreement that got Beats Electronics alive and shipping headphones, but not without gigantic forfeit,” Biddle reported. “Jimmy and Dre’s side of Beats would retain permanent ownership of everything that Monster developed.”
If that is the case, Monster may not be having any luck with the lawsuit.
Another argument that has surfaced is whether or not the hardware design was even essential to Beats’ success.
As most consumers will point out, Beats by Dre are stylish headphones that come jam-packed with a bunch of amazing branding and marketing efforts.
As far as the actual quality of the product, a stunning amount of people believe the headphones are overpriced.
“As someone who is a sound engineer and an audiophile when it comes to what I use for listening—I can tell you that Beats are absolutely woeful for that price,” one reader said.
Others claimed it was far too easy to damage the headphones, which will set you back at least $200.
For that same price, many consumers admit there are options that will give much better sound quality and prove to be much more durable—though these other options won’t come with the superficial satisfaction of wearing the same headphones that have been sported by Nicki Minaj, Big Sean, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, Kenan Thompson and Lil Wayne.
Either way, Monster is standing firm behind their accusations that Dre and Iovine were conspiring against them from the start.
“The Complaint asserts Defendants, including Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, engaged in a conspiracy and course of conduct to improperly take over Monster’s incredibly successful line of ‘Beats by Dr. Dre’ products, as well as Monster’s intellectual property,” Monster’s lawyers explained in an email to Gizmodo.
It is clear that Monster got the shorter end of the stick with the business deal ,but whether or not this constitutes fraudulent behavior on behalf of Beats, Dr. Dre and Iovine will be a bit more challenging to prove in court.
