licensing

Jun 18, 2015 ∞

Monster sues their way out of Apple's licensed accessories program

Apple Revokes Monster’s Authority to Make Licensed Accessories

Daisuke Wakabayashi writes at The Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Tognotti said he told Apple that the move would significantly disrupt Monster’s business and that the two companies had worked well for years, with Monster paying Apple more than $12 million in licensing fees since 2008. Monster said roughly 900 of its more than 4,000 products were made through the MFi program.

Lawyers are paid to be good at chess. Monster’s counsel should have seen this coming and advised executives that they should pursue their lawsuit against Apple only if the potential upside would vastly outweigh the likely downside of a licensing termination.

Photo of Monster’s HQ courtesy Wikipedia user Coolcaesar

Nov 7, 2012 ∞

Pandora suing ASCAP for lower licensing fees

Don Jeffrey of Bloomberg:

Pandora also claims that it’s entitled to lower rates because some large music publishers have announced they are withdrawing new media rights from Ascap and negotiating licensing fees directly with Web radio services.

The times, they are a-changin’.