… and I couldn’t be happier about it. For those who don’t know, MonaVie is a juice, that retails for $1.70 an ounce (yes ounce). Being the consumer advocate that I am, I wrote that I think MonaVie is a scam since it’s around $1500-$2000 a year per person and has no proven health benefits. (In fact, only people associated with MonaVie even allege that it’s healthy and never address that for less money you could buy healthier foods.) My critical article has been pretty popular, somehow gathering a few devoted followers who have added new research on a daily or weekly basis. That has helped it rank on the first page of Google for the company’s own term, “MonaVie”. It also has generated over 3200 comments to date.
With that in mind, MonaVie sent me a cease and desist on the article. It’s not really a surprise to me, as I’m sure have this criticism in such prime real estate as Google is not good for their business. In fact, I’m proud that my criticism is apparently costing them enough sales where they feel they need to do something (however far-fetched) to shut me up.
Here’s the e-mail that they sent to the company that does the private registration on my domain:
Subject: Trademark Infringement
Dear Domains by Proxy, Inc.:
MonaVie LLC (MonaVie) has been informed of the website(s) https://www.lazymanandmoney.com/monavie-scam-was-my-wife-recruited-sell-snake-oil/ registered through Go Daddy Domains. As the registrant, MonaVie asks that you remove all references to MonaVie and its products.
As a network marketing company MonaVie does not permit its name to be used in any URL or email address and the company must take necessary action to protect its intellectual property. It is not permitted for a third party vendor to use the MonaVie trade name in any form.
The MonaVie name and symbol are registered trademarks. (U.S. Reg. Nos. 3111333, 3111332, 78526279). MonaVie’s federal registration of these trademarks provides MonaVie with the right to restrict the use of the trademark, or a confusingly similar trademark, in any way that misrepresents the origin of MonaVie’s products or dilutes the MonaVie brand and goodwill associated therewith.
State and federal law supports our position that the use of MonaVie’s trademarks and proprietary copyrighted material may cause confusion among customers. This confusion may cause substantial harm to the trademark by facilitating the loss of its effectiveness in establishing a distinct association between it, MonaVie’s products & services, and MonaVie’s goodwill. Your unauthorized use of MonaVie’s federally registered trademarks amounts to an infringement of MonaVie’s trademark rights.
MonaVie wishes to settle this situation amicably and therefore, requests that you immediately cease the use of our trade name MonaVie. Additionally, we request that you respond to this email within seven (7) days to confirm this action via email to: [Editor’s note: e-mail address erased].
Failure to comply with our requests may result in legal recourse to protect our vested interests in the aforementioned trademarks and trade names. Should you have any questions, please contact me at the following number [Editor’s Note: Phone number removed].
Respectfully,
Heather SeamonsDistributor Compliance Specialist
I suppose MonaVie doesn’t believe in the freedom of speech when it comes to being a critic. Would Quentin Tarantino try to silence movie critics if they said that they didn’t like Inglorious Bastards? I don’t think so. There seem to hundreds of personal finance blogs that don’t like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but that doesn’t get Robert Kiyosaki on a litigious rampage. Even as a critic, I have been a lot more reserved than Dr. Dean Edell was on his syndicated radio show yesterday. My favorite quotes of his were “This is worthless. They are breaking the law.”, and “Have your friend call me – . have her tell me what things that [MonaVie] cures. I’ll grind her up in very little pieces – .”
If I were spreading untruths, I could see the legal action. Unfortunately MonaVie doesn’t mention any of that, so I presume that’s not the case.
The only thing that I see that potentially has any merit is the URL claim. I do indeed use MonaVie in the URL. However, I believe that only extends to domain names. It has not prevented Wikipedia from using it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MonaVie) or from the NY Times from using Apple’s trademarked iPhone product in today’s article: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/28/technology/AP-AS-China-iPhone.html. There are only two differences between these and my use of MonaVie. 1) I was critical of MonaVie. 2) I’m a lowly Sole proprietorship (without a legal team), so they probably feel they can scare me easier.
Having read the above e-mail that Heather sent a few more times, I’m taking a slightly different view than when I started writing this post. It is entirely possible that they think I’m a MonaVie distributor. That would explain why they had a “Distributor Compliance Specialist” send the mail rather than someone in their legal team. If I were a distributor, I’d be breaking my MonaVie contract by having an unauthorized website (yes, MonaVie makes you give up the freedom of press when you sign up if you can imagine that). I really fail to see how they can say I’m a MonaVie distributor when I call their product a scam and compare it to snake oil. Wouldn’t that make me the worst salesman in the world? What sense does that make? And why wouldn’t they just offer to drop me from their distributor program? Perhaps it’s because they don’t know that I’m not in their distributor program – well that’s an issue they created for themselves, when they made up their distributor rules, it is not for a trademark battle for the courts to decide.
I had a week where you might say that things haven’t bounced my direction. Just last night my wife suggested that this weekend, I should go get a massage – wash the negativity away and start the next week fresh. (Massages cost money, I suggested we do a picnic instead.) Adding this to the long list of MonaVie criticisms has done more than a massage or picnic ever could. Plus, it’s good motivation for me to continue my MonaVie Scam website.
Update: It turns out that comment #46 below is from a MonaVie internal IP address. Yep, a MonaVie employee is calling me an “Annoying Douche”.
Update 2: Special thanks to Tight Fisted Miser who pointed out that I’m likely protected by the Federal Trademark Dilution Revision Act Of 2006. It specifically grants fair use for “identifying and parodying, criticizing, or commenting upon the famous mark owner or the goods or services of the famous mark owner” [Section 42, (3) (A) (ii)] and “forms of news reporting and news commentary.” [Section 42, (3) (B)]. I think it’s safe to say that my use was clearly identifying and criticizing the famous trademark owner (and it’s goods) as well as news commentary.
Update 3: I want to thank a couple of people for spreading the word of this story:
- The Consumerist’s article: MonaVie Hits Blogger Over ‘Trademarks’ In Metadata
- J.D. of Get Rich Slowly reTweeted it across his thousands of followers.
- AOL’s Wallet Pop sided with me that MonaVie is only after me because I was critical of the product.
- Fraud Files took it all a step further and found out that MonaVie is editing their own Wikipedia page to remove their own Income Disclosure Statement, which makes it look like a poor business opportunity.
You do realize that you just created another URL with this term in it? :)
Pretty funny.
It does make reference to dilution of goodwill, but that’s a rather small part of the whole letter.
The Wall Street Journal must be shaking in their boots – they mention hundreds of companies in their newspaper every single day. They, too, could end up on the wrong end of one of these leters.
I’ve always wondered – could you cease and not desist – or perhaps desist, but not cease? :)
Kosmo @ The Casual Observer said:
“You do realize that you just created another URL with this term in it? :)”
So sue me.
I think “cease” and “desist” are much like a “nook” and “cranny”, they almost have to be used together. (I’ve seen “nook” used separately, I don’t think I’ve heard “cranny” used on it’s own – although I know it can be.)
Well, how about them apples?? Or should I say “acai berries”?
I don’t know how in the world they can claim trademark infringement. So now, if someone has a negative thing to say about anything…any company, any product, any experience with said company or product, in telling anyone about that experience, we’d all just have to say something like XYZ company sells XYZ dog food, and ABC company sells ABC dog food. ABC dog food is much less expensive than XYZ dog food, so try to avoid XYZ dog food? Without ever giving out the real names of the real companies?
And that helps consumers how?
Naming a company or product by name is a trademark violation, how?
Geez, is MonaVie so inept that they really don’t even know who is an enrolled distributor and who is not?
Perhaps…since they are now being sued by HARPO and Dr. Oz for their own trademark infringement…they need some distractions.
http://www.marketwaveinc.com/oprah-vs-monavie.pdf
And seriously, how many times can one find the name “MonaVie” on non-MonaVie websites on the internet??!!
Well, LazyMan, you know that I wondered how long it would be until they tried something like this.
Can’t wait to read the other replies you will get.
Am a 100% sure that as long as your weren’t slandering (saying false things) they have 0 chance of winning anything and you have not broken any laws. They probably weren’t really planning to pursue it, thinking that that letter alone will scare you. What do I say? Write some more blog posts about them ;)
“And seriously, how many times can one find the name “MonaVie” on non-MonaVie websites on the internet??!!”
According to Bing, 34.6 million times.
That’s kind of a lot.
Amber, I think that’s my thing. If I were saying false things (well writing in this case so I think it would be libel), they should at least reference the things that were false, right?
I’d be happy to fix anything if anything is false, but they seem to be going with the trademark angle.
(And yes this one of those “more blog posts about them” ;-). )
That’s a lot of Bings!
I forgot to say in my previous comment….
What about the documented cases I have commented about and linked to several times on the Snake-Oil post where actual MonaVie distributors have registered their sole proprietorships or LLCs with the name “MonaVie”?
All one has to do is search “MonaVie” or “MonaVie LLC” in the BBB’s United States Website.
So maybe it’s only trademark infringement if the comments are truthful, i.e., negative. ;-)
“Would Quentin Tarantino try to silence movie critics if they said that they didn’t like Inglorious Bastards? I don’t think so.”
Can you say, Barbara Streisand effect? What are they thinking?? Some of these companies really need to study up on what happens when you attempt to stop negative press about your product. It generally backfires… and they are generally left with egg on their face, because they have no case.
Dumb.
Yes Candace, I think that’s one of the reasons why I’m so happy about this development. It seems like they are just picking the ones that are critical.
Lori, I have to look into the specific Barbara Streisand case. I hadn’t heard it called that before.
I do agree that this kind of negative publicity is just going to hurt them more. If I were a distributor and read this, I’d probably have two thoughts:
1) Well it’s good that they are battling critics in some way. This will help out my business.
2) Oh crap, this guy is actually right and the company I chose to work for is not the nice place that I thought it was.
I’m hoping for more of the later, but I expect the former will be most likely.
From Wikipedia:
“Mike Masnick originally coined the term Streisand effect in reference to a 2003 incident where Barbra Streisand sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million in an attempt to have the aerial photo of her house removed from the publicly available collection of 12,000 California coastline photographs, citing privacy concerns.[1][3][4] Adelman stated that he was photographing beachfront property to document coastal erosion as part of the California Coastal Records Project.[5] As a result of the case, public knowledge of the picture increased substantially and it became popular on the Internet, with more than 420,000 people visiting the site over the next month.[6]”
That’s one of the strangest claims I’ve ever seen.
How can an organization claim that to use their brand name is a violation of trademark? If that were the case, then no one would never be allowed to mention any brand name — ever.
Unless, of course, you mention it in a positive light.
I’m curious, if you use their reasoning, could you sidestep the whole issue by referring to them as “Monavie, LLC” instead of just “Monavie”.
Matt,
I don’t think so. I’m really talking about the product in many cases, so I couldn’t exactly say that “I don’t see any proven health benefits by drinking ‘MonaVie, LLC.’ over the other cheaper juice options out there.”
That would be funny, but they’d probably still claim the trademark thing (whether it’s a legit claim or not).
TDFRTAM = The Drink Formerly Referred To As MonaVie
Rolls right off the tongue.
Anybody got a crazy graphic symbol that I could use for TDFRTAM :-)? I suppose I’d need to contract previous commenter Amber Weinberg who did the great logo that you see on this site.
Any case worth its salt will have a cease and desist sent by CERTIFIED MAIL not email. This was just a scare tactic.
Well, now that HARPO is suing MonaVie, maybe all MonaVie can afford is email. ;-)
From a business perspective, Can you imagine very many things much scarier than being sued by HARPO?
Wow. Keep us updated. I agree, they can’t hold anything against you for talking about it – we are in the era of blogs, web 2.0 and what ever stopped any word of mouth?
The closest claim they could make would be to reword your URL for that article.
I doubt there is any basis for a charge of libel in your post. You are just reporting what you have learned.
You raise good points about Rich Dad criticism, and wikipedia pages, etc.
Ron,
MonaVie doesn’t have my address to send something via CERTIFIED MAIL. Perhaps they sent the e-mail to the company that hides my privacy as a precursor to getting that data? If Domains By Proxy agrees then MonaVie will have my information to send a real cease and desist. I made what I consider to be a very good response to Domains By Proxy that being anonymous is key to my business model.
MonaVie should be able to understand that since every time anyone has tried to find out how much acai is their juice they give a similar response. Specifically, I’ve gotten, “product’s formula is a trade secret and is one of the company’s greatest intellectual assets protected under U.S. law.”
They don’t have a valid claim for dilution. The Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995 allows using marks in a non-commercial manner and using it in any form of news reporting or commentary. Your blog should qualify as commentary. They were probably just hoping that you would be scared by the email and remove the post.
Thanks Andy,
I just researched that and you do appear to be correct. That saves me a lot of legal research. I also sent Heather Seamons of MonaVie that as further evidence that I’m in the right in this case.
She hasn’t responded to any of my e-mails hoping that there’s some clarification soon or the egg will just pile up in their face.
I think it was just a scare tactic.
IF you had used Monavie in a domain name then I think they’d have a case for trademark infringement. But obviously using a trademark in a URL happens every day and should be fair use.
The reason behind certified mail (or bailiff, or sherif), is to prove that the recipient received the actual letter. There is even a recent case in Australia were the courts permitted service of procedures on Facebook as it was deemed the only way to reach the defendant. In this event, you wouldn’t be able to deny that you never received the letter (email) since you blogged about it.
In any event, you should consider changing your post’s title to MonaVie is threatening to Sue me as a cease and desist letter is not a legal procedure. It’s just an attempt to have someone correct a situation (or else).
Cheer up!
Nicolas, I understand when certified mail is used, but what if you don’t have that persons address to send it to? That’s what MonaVie is up against with me. Domains By Proxy makes me effectively an unlisted address.
I don’t want to say that I’ve never received the letter, I have replied back to Heather Seamons of MonaVie about three times now. Just waiting for their response on the topic.
I see only a sliver of difference between “trying” and “threatening.” I see no situation to correct (from my end), so if they have a real problem with what I’m doing, they’ll be “trying” to sue me. I will not be caving into this threat.
Cheer up? As I said, I couldn’t be happier. I hope that didn’t come across as sarcastic. I’ve been hoping that MonaVie would contact me for over a year now. All the better if they get me in a court room where I can get out in the open the pile of shady (and likely illegal) things that they’ve been doing (you have to read all the comments in my original article).
FUNNY! I know a person who sold this stuff and used their own health as their primary sales mechanism. You can imagine the impact on sales when they fell ill for several weeks …
Hilarious!
Fantastic. Since it’s not in the domain itself and since you’re using it as part of a critique, I think you’re safe. As Miser says, commentary and critique is allowed.
Plus, accusations of trademark dilution are ridiculous. Trademark dilution is using a trademarked phrase in such a way as to broaden its meaning in the public consciousness (not how the law I’ve seen is phrased, but that’s what the commentary seems to say). Like if I created Nike soft drinks or Coke sneakers. It wouldn’t infringe because people wouldn’t confuse one with the other (well, maybe) but it would dilute the strength of the brand as a whole.
You’re not diluting their mark at all, you’re using their mark to refer to them and therefore strengthening its association with their company and product.
If they were to go after you for anything, it’d have to be libel. ;)
Probably just a scare letter.
Great article. I happen to sell a liquid vitamin supplement (not Mona Vie) and I can’t believe that they would make a big deal about this. I think some people forget that this is a free country. Anymore though, there seems to be some loop hole around every corner. Mostly to benefit the greedy.
Joseph,
It wasn’t often-injured Red Sox player and MonaVie ad-man J.D. Drew, was it?
Good point Mrs. Micah,
I’m actually giving them publicity and giving their product mention to those who wouldn’t ordinarily know of it.
The no-using-name-in-URL thing sounds completely bogus. I’ve never even heard of Scientology using that one, and they have a reputation for suing everybody for everything on the net (check it out). I’d assume they’d have some kind of case if you’d registered the domain name http://www.monaviesucks.com, but you haven’t. (Though any future searches for monaviesucks.com or monaviescam.com or monavieisascam.com will reach this post.)
I got a C&D (plus destroy all copies and send us some money for legal and postage) from the Dummies publishers back when I was doing a self-published zine with a self-published (photocopied) run of about 100 … I called my ‘best of’ issue Cygnals For Dummies. Somehow they stumbled upon it back in the early days of the internet and sent me the stop-it-and-pay-us letter… which I received weeks after their “you must … by” date.
Well, long story short, I sent ’em a letter … saying fine, I’ll replace the title. I stuck modified covers on all the zines and on the web with the new title “Cygnals for Uptight American Book Weasels.” Never heard from them again.
Anyway, as long as you’re not using any of their trademarked imagery, an excessive amount of text, or lying about them, IMHO (but IANAL) you’re totally in the clear. Tell ’em to bring it on, Scientology-style.
Oh, one more thing — I agree with whoever pointed out the “trying” to sue me thing. In the interest of correctness, I think they could make a solid case that they’re not *trying* to sue you — they’re trying not to sue you by ensuring compliance with the law. They’d rather not sue you — they just want to shut you up.
Awesome. Give’m hell Lazy!
Wow, I had loved your article when I first read it. I’ve been through this before with a Multi-Level Marketing scheme “Shop to Earn”. Long story short, their legal counsel was using similar bullying tactics and get this – they demanded that I take down my entire site!!! Hahahaha! I ended up taking down some of the content at my first blog (EverydayFinance) and did a new article at Darwin’s Finance which now has all kinds of drama, threats, police involved, etc. as recently as today. Gotta love it!
Anyway, I ended up getting all kinds of free speech advocates, MLM watchdogs, forensic accountants and whatnot behind me and the internet blew up over it. OK, I’m not Al Gore and I didn’t invent the internet, but some advocates were able to get my story featured on TechCrunch and several other prominent blogs where the online community went sort of nuts for a while.
I think it’s safe to say it blew up in their face – just like this will.
If you want me to put you in contact with my “peeps” and help spread the word (well, I already linked to this in my weekly links), just drop me a line at my blog.
i think it’s absolutely hilarious that companies will send shut up letters to bloggers that have any following at all – did they ever think that you would possibly not post their letter online? maybe read LM’s blog for a month and put 2 and 2 together about his personality and possibly take the idea to the “legal team” saying, “ya know, if we send him this letter it’s going to be on the web in no time.”
LM – 2 (and counting). MonaVie – 0.
Darwin’s Finances,
I was just reading the article about you on Tech Dirt. This seems to be exactly what MonaVie is doing except they aren’t claiming libel. They are using trademarks to say, cease and desist saying negative things about us that rank in popular search engines.
Definitely set me up with you people (I’m contacting you).
Cos,
Thanks! There are a lot of comments in my original post where people question MonaVie’s decision making. If those people are right, it wouldn’t surprise that they made a curious decision such as try to attack me in this way.
The most interesting thing is that there are pile of people with comments that state that MonaVie is throwing stones from their glass house. They would love nothing more than to find themselves in a courtroom with MonaVie.
I have just…
“Released the Kracken!”
How’s that for an 80’s sci-fi flick quote. Who can name that one?
Anyway, ball is rolling on this.
Keep us posted on the next volley, I’m sure more will follow.
@ Darwin’s Finance,
That’s from “Clash of the Titans”. I’m guessing Lazy Man gets to be Perseus.
monavie is making so much money i dont know why they would bother trying to shut you down. can you imagine the people who could be sued if coca-cola had this approach!
Jenny,
I think it’s not about how much MonaVie is making, but how much they are losing by the reams of logical criticism in the 3300 comments. If you thought you were losing a large percentage of your sales in your business, you’d want to take some action as well. Sadly (for them), it doesn’t appear that the law is on their side.
One has to wonder if they’ve gone after bigger fish like the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jonny-bowden/new-rules-no-more-claimin_b_106562.html) or Men’s Journal (http://www.mensjournal.com/superjuices-on-trial). Perhaps they didn’t as they don’t rank in the top 10 for “MonaVie” and MonaVie knows these big fish have legal teams ready to attack.
I would guess that counter-suits would have put Coca-Cola out of business – maybe that’s they aren’t taking this tactic. Plus Coca-Cola isn’t charging more than 20x their competitors on the basis of unproven health claims (Compare prices of MonaVie [$1.70/oz.] to V8 Fusion Acai Berry (recently 6.5 cents an oz. at WalMart).
I completely agree with you and I hope Monavie burns in hell along with all of its employees. You might want to consider setting up a legal fund to not only defend yourself, but to counter-sue Monvie. Your readers could contribute to the legal fund and then take a share of whatever damages you were granted.
Monavie = [butt] pimple juice
Keep up the good work my friend.
I have added your site to my list of good solid anti-mlm resources.
I also will do some twittering at twitter.com/poormanadvocate
You rock Lazy Man! I told you before I tried MonaVie just to see what it was like, and yeah, I had health problems. I am one of those people who was looking for some elixir for my health issues — from herbs to vitamins to drinks, whatever. When you’re sick, you will try anything, even if common sense tells you that chances are, they won’t work and these solutions are but worthless. They play on hope. Anyway, I got better by simply changing my lifestyle — vitamins helped somewhat but eating better helped much more.
Back to the subject: I think MonaVie tastes nice yummy, but yeah, you’re buying taste I guess not the health benefits on this one.
I wrote about it on a MLM forum. I guess I made the URL with their name too: http://forum.mlmeo.com/monavie-sue-lazy-man-t49.html
:-)
I love it Leo. You are a bad, bad man and the MonaVie police are going to come after you.
Lazy man really is lazy. I can’t believe you even waste your time with this. Do you have a real job or do you just sit at home on the computer getting fatter and fatter. My guess…. the fat part. Why waste time bagging on any company that you haven’t trie. I haven’t tried this but if I had chance to, I am not going to listen to the fat, lazy, sit on computer with no lover Lazy man. You’re annoying douche
Jessica, you just make yourself seem ignorant with accusations that you know nothing about? Have you ever been to my site Lazy Man and Health? It’s not the site that a fat man would own. However, you could go there and read all about my height, weight, even body fat percentage. No guessing required.
My wife tried it and I posted about her experience. It was my words after getting her feedback. I was not offered the product as I had another commitment that night.
Do you know what this site is even about? It’s about helping people save and manage their money. I don’t “bag” on companies that don’t deserve it. If you charge a 20x premium for your product over your direct competitors, one shouldn’t have to “try it” to know what you are getting. You should have very clear, objective information as to the value that it has.
The fact that you are defending something you’ve supposedly never tried with such vigor gives a logical person some pause to the authenticity of your comment. If you had no affiliation with company you’d read the article and say, “Huh, yeah he was critical of the company, but they are still wrong about suing him because he committed no legal offense.”
It’s obvious to all that you must have some stake in this discussion to spew such venom. The fact that you chose to hide it only makes MonaVie distributors look like liars.
What a crack up. Do their lawyers know they send out this stuff? You should counter sue for defamation of character and mental distress, you’d probably have a stronger case for it than they have now! :)Good luck, hope they leave you alone.
I just stumbled across your web and this Monavie juice. I would think the FDA would have something to say about these unsubstantiated claims. Or Consumer Reports even.
I know Oprah has all the money (that’s what David Letterman says! :), but I hope HARPO and Dr Oz get bajillions more in their lawsuit.
Lazy Man,
I would love to know your real name so I could include it in a URL. Your full name, not just part of it, so its identity is certain. I will then say anything I want about you in the article, ignoring most facts and taking others out of context so you sound like a scam artist and a fraud.
Then I will use my skills at self-promotion to make sure my article about you from the website goes viral, and becomes the top Google item when your name is entered.
Then, when you have had enough of the slander and decide to send me a letter from your lawyers, you decide to ridicule me some more.
Incidentally, as Monavie distributors we sign an agreement with Monavie that we, also, will not register a URL with the word “monavie” in it. Fair enough – it is a trademark, after all, and that’s a well-protected right in a free enterprise based society.
Monavie is now emplying Brazilians as fruit harvesters year-round, earning far more money than many in Brazil are able to earn at any job. They are also sponsoring charitable work in the poorest areas of urban Brazil.
As a company, Monavie offers the best compensation plan and distributor support in the industry, with a product that has been endorsed by physicians, scientists, athletes, professional sports teams including the Utah Jazz and Boston Red Sox, and generated $1 billion in sales in just over 3 years of business. It’s the fastest growing food and beverage company in Inc.com’s annual survey, and the 3rd fastest in all categories for revenue growth.
So it’s a scam. In my best Dr Evil impersonation, “R-i-i-i-ght”.
Good luck with the slam campaign. Me, I’ll take health and community building as my bread and butter, thank you very much.
OK, I ranted a little bit there for a minute. The points I wanted to make were that I believe Monavie is the real deal, and that I would agree that as a registered trademark they do have a legitimate beef with respect to the URL, but you also have every right to criticize the company publicly and name them by name in your posts … just as they have every right to ask you to stop!
The problem here isn’t one of free speech so much as it is one of intent. If you want to have a dialogue, this is a good place for it to go on. If you simply want to tear down the efforts not only of a reputable corporation but of all of the distributors who sincerely believe in the product and the opportunity, then I would hope you give full consideration to the consequences of your actions.
Truman, just go with Lazy Man. People probably know more by that than my real name. Trust me, you could do me more harm by going after that than anything. Plus it’s my business name, no different than MonaVie.
Keep in mind that there are no facts ignored in the 3200 comments on my MonaVie Scam article. Nothing is taken out of context. If you believe this not be true, then please go there and say specifically what is either ignored or taken out of context. Please don’t generalize and then not back it up.
Also, realize the difference between slander and libel. Then realize that MonaVie isn’t trying to sue me for libel. Obviously they want to get me for whatever they can, but they apparently realize that they have no libel case. Thus your talk of slander and libel really doesn’t make any sense.
Yes Truman, I know that you sign something saying that you won’t get something with MonaVie in the URL. I mentioned that in the original article (see: “yes, MonaVie makes you give up the freedom of press when you sign up if you can imagine that.”) That’s something that you agreed to, I did not. I pointed out places where legit, recognized businesses (Wikipedia, NY Times) use the trademarked name in the URL. Obviously, it’s not “fair enough – it is a trademark, after all, and that’s a well-protected right in a free enterprise based society.”
Jeopardy is a trademarked game show and it doesn’t stop Saturday Night Live from using the name. As the update says, I’m well within my rights. If you don’t believe that maybe you’ll believe AOL property WalletPop: http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/09/01/monavie-thinks-people-dont-have-a-right-to-criticize-it/. No, I’m sure that AOL is wrong too.
You leave out the fact that MonaVie is making acai so scarce that Brazilians can’t afford the food they’ve grown up on: acai. That’s sourced in the comments of my article as well. It’s not all good in Brazil with MonaVie.
It’s a pretty poor industry if the best compensation is 82% of people earning less than $4.50 an hour (http://media.monavie.com/pdf/corporate/income_disclosure_statement.pdf). After paying for juice they are barely breaking even after 486 hours a year worked.
The story behind MonaVie and Red Sox is very deep (Terry Francona’s son is a distributor and distributors like J.D. break the terms of service)… of course you’d know this if you read the comments.
You’d also know that it’s very questionable that MonaVie has a billion in revenue.
Ahh, yes Inc. says it’s growing. The income disclosure statements show a different trend. Meanwhile Men’s Journal has tests showing that the juice is nutritionally deficient (http://www.mensjournal.com/superjuices-on-trial).
I don’t see any legal precedent to them asking me to stop using them in the URL. They have every right to ask me to stop, but they didn’t ask. They threatened legal action. I responded to them within an hour of receiving notice and it’s been 4 days (admittedly only 2 business days) with no response from Ms. Seamons. If I don’t hear something soon, it will confirm my suspicion, it was just a scare tactic.
I want to have a dialogue and have had one at the link I mentioned. It’s got 3200 comments… that’s dialogue. It’s just all that dialogue has lead me to the conclusion that MonaVie is in fact a scam.
Mark, you asked about FDA. Well, the people involved with MonaVie had to deal with FDA in the past, see:
http://www.mlmeo.com/monavie/monavie-scam.php
MonaVie
MonaVie
MonaVie
(Just a little SEO help…)
:)
I just happened to be surfing for information on Mona vie. Your site was VERY informative. I followed other links that led me to valuable information, both pro and con. Mona vie is NOT for me! I learned a lot! Thank you for being here.
Sincerely,
Pashion
Let me start by saying network marketing is not for me, and I don’t associate with any such company. By all means, I don’t think you have done anything wrong, and I don’t think the company thinks you have done anything wrong either. I have built several small-to-medium sized businesses, and I think their aim is more about SEM impact than your potential to bring down their business. I suppose that there is no such thing as bad press.
But, what makes you sound like you just like to argue in the manner of the Rush L. sort, is the way you throw out terms like “Freedom of the Press”, etc. when it has nothing to do about that. It has nothing to do with free speech as used in the press. The sorts of things you describe in your article is how a company builds and controls brand usage guidelines – every major brand in the world does the same thing. Any corporate marketer can tell you that.
As a professor of speech and law, I’d also say that your interpretation of free speech is so completely off the mark, that you actually are doing more harm to the stability of the constitution by making the less educated understand the bill of rights in a manner that is not only inaccurate, but absurdly anti-freedom if it were to run its course.
This is your gig, and you have the right to say what you want, but just know that your loose use of terminology and verbal warriorism actually makes you sound a bit less educated, and I think that you are probably pretty smart (probably).
Thanks Doug.
There aim may be SEM-related, but in that scenario, you’d think they know that they can’t legally enforce of that changing of URLs (at least from any precedent that I’ve been able to find).
I am open about the fact that I don’t follow Rush Limbaugh, so I couldn’t even tell you what you mean by the fact that I’m arguing that. I also am not a lawyer and haven’t read the Bill of Rights in over 15 years. Unlike you, it not my profession to be a professor of speech and law. I do not choose to study these things.
Doug, I think you missed an opportunity to try to set things right and correct me where I went astray rather than chastise me for going astray. As a professor, I hope you don’t just tell your students they are wrong, but you attempt to educate them to why they wrong.
In any event, the terminology is irrelevant. I do know that I’m in the right in this case. I listed a number of real world examples that prove it. Furthermore, big sites like AOL’s WalletPop agree with me. So we shouldn’t miss out on the big picture here, based on my not having a professor’s exact knowledge on the exact terminology.
Tell them you won’t stop telling the truth, but offer your site for sale for $1 million and tell them you won’t start a competing site or talk about the deal for 5 years. ;-)
By the way, Tata & Sons of India sued a company I started with my friends. Twice.
For trademark infringement. The second time they wanted $50,000. We settled for $1000.
Hey Lazy Man,
You should check out the Ripoff Reports ‘Want to sue Ripoff Riport’ page – it might be helpful to you.
Here’s the link for that page:
http://ripoffreport.com/ConsumersSayThankYou/WantToSueRipoffReport.aspx
Never read your site before, but after following a link here from the Consumerist, I’ll be bookmarking your site and checking in frequently from here on in. I’m always impressed when a consumer takes up the good fight. Well done Lazy Man!
As for Doug, while he’s technically right, insofar as Monavie’s prohibiting of its distributors from creating branded websites isn’t exactly a free speech issue, he’s totally missing the mark here. As far as their issue with Lazy Man goes, it almost undoubtedly is about stifling his freedom of speech.
You need to be able to read between the lines Professor Doug. First, the very nature of the claim itself belies what they’re truly after. It has no merit. This means that they either just threw something out there that they hoped sounded at least semi-plausible, counting on Lazy to be frightened enough by the legal mumbo-jumbo that he’d remove the negative articles he wrote about the company, or Monavie’s law department is staffed with inept morons. Why else would they send him a meritless threat?
Besides, as Lazy himself has pointed out, it’s awful coincidental that the sites that use Monavies’ trademarks in a similar manner, but that also happen to be speaking favorably of the company and its products, haven’t received C&D letters like he did. If you can’t see that this is a clear attack on his freedom of speech, you’re not looking hard enough Doug. Sometimes it pays to look beneath the surface. Hell, if Lazy had never done that himself, folks might not be aware of how little value Monavie’s products really hold.
OK, not a trademark lawyer, so don’t take this as legal advice in your case. However, the rules on famous marks do not apply to all trademarks, only famous ones.
Ordinary trademarks are limited to particular goods. Usually someone else can use the mark for other goods. So for example, the existence of Watermelon (TM) brand of computers would not stop someone else from making Watermelon (TM) brand jeans. The idea being that people won’t confuse an ordinary (non-famous) trademark name for computers as being associated with the same name for jeans.
However, once a mark becomes famous, a third party can’t use it even for unrelated goods. No “Coca-Cola” brand television sets, even though the Coca-Cola company doesn’t make television sets.
For ordinary trademarks, the news exception wasn’t really needed since selling newspapers with articles about the marks wasn’t selling the same type of goods as the mark (usually). However, when they made the famous mark rules about dilution, they wanted to head off lawsuits against newspapers so they made specific exceptions.
Commentary is protected and the use of trademarks to comment on trademarked goods is also protected. In fact, you can even talk about a competitors goods in your ads, as long as you don’t create confusion as to the origin of goods.
“Our product is better than monavie” in a competitors ad would be fine (assuming it was unlikely to make people think they were getting monavie products. So no putting “Our product is better than” in ultra-fine print and “monavie” in big print.
Lets look through the comment section from the famous Newsweek article shall we and see what other distributor claims(aside from the generic “It makes me feel better”) we can find…
1) HELPS CLEANSE AND PROMPT REGULAR BOWEL MOVEMENTS – “I lost 6 pounds of accumulated fieces in less than two months of drinking the juice.” Page 52 – 08/02/08
Little too graphic for me, distributor.
2)AUTISM – “They have 2 autistic children and have tried everything to help them. This is the best thing that they have found. PARENTS WITH SICK CHILDREN ARE TIED OF GIVING THEIR KIDS DRUGS” -Page 52 – 08/03/2008
what?!?!?!? Lets take a step back and reflect on that last sentence. Not only does it not make sense gramatically (Tied does not equal tired), it doesn’t make sense at all. Is this bizarro world?
3)SOUND PARENTAL ADVICE (IF ONE OF YOUR PARENTS HAPPEN TO BE BERNIE MADOFF) ” Stay away of negative bitter individuals who have no FACTS backing their ignorant claims and accusations. Its clear a lot of people are trying to bash MonaVie because of their success & if you look deep, you’ll find most individuals doing this bashing without facts are part of some other relational marketing company and are simply afraid of where this company is going. Now look at MonaVie, you will never see the company bashing any others, and for the most part, any distributors either.” -08/03/2008
Apparently, in the Bizarro World, there is a capital city of Hypocrisy. Unfortunately, I am lost in it. Where is a map?
4)ORAC CONFUSION – “The ORAC score for 1 gram of freeze dried acai powder is 1,027 ORAC units. This may seem low when compared to other ORAC claims; however, it is actually very high. ” -Page 52 – 08/03/2008.
Vogel, you would know more about this than me. Maybe you can tell me why low, only in this instance, means high. I hope this Bizarro World has a beach.
5)COLDS, SHOULDER PAIN, FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH – ” Since drinking the ‘Juice’ I have forgotten about shoulder surgery, I enjoy a body that can fight off common colds in short order, give me an energy level I haven’t felt since my 20’s” – Page 52 – 08/03/2008
I also heard Monavie saved a baby from a burning building. Oh wait, nevermind. Just a billboard I drove by in Bizarro World
6)DESTROYING CANCER CELLS – “A Brazilian berry popular in health food contains antioxidants that destroyed cultured human cancer cells in a recent University of Florida study, one of the first to investigate the fruit” – Page 52 – 08/03/2008
OK my initial plan was to showcase all the examples of stupid distributor comments from this one article. However, after realizing that more than half of the first 2 pages are bogus distributor claims, I will continue this process on my own so I do not waste 3000 pages on this forum. When I am done with this Newsweek article, I will post the factual results into categories of serious diseases,general well being, and overall general stupidity (For lack of a better category name at the moment). I will divide the number of posts and tally them up into the categories. I have a feeling the numbers will be astonishing.
Now, I will delve myself deep into Bizarro World, where there is no daylight of reason. Where the birds swim and the fish fly. Where Steven Seagall wins the Academy Award for Best Actor every year and the Pittsburgh Pirates are constantly in the playoffs.
By the way, I have heard unsubstantiated reports of MonaVie coming out with a product for cats and dogs? Again, unconfirmed, but that’s just what I’ve heard. Someone else might be able to shed some better light on this disastrous idea.
Well, it’s somewhat official… MonaVie has sent a more legal-looking CDO on the metadata keywords via e-mail, addressed to my pen-name.
For background, see: http://consumerist.com/5356665/monavie-hits-blogger-over-trademarks-in-metadata
“Consumer Reports on Healthy”, in their latest issue (Vol 29, number 3) has an article “Caution with resveratrol and acai berries”.
I embed a few extracts relevant to acai berries from the article. No product names or companies are mentioned in the article.
“But a lack of scientific evidence, combined with concerns about some of the tactics used to sell the products have caused controversy.”
“Test-tube studies suggest that acai berries, which come from a South American palm tree, have lots of antioxidant activity. But we couldn’t find any studies measuring weather acai has any direct effect on human health.”
“That lack of evidence makes some of the marketing strategies for the products all the more worrisome. For example, we found pictures of the same woman – with three different names – being used to promote three separate acai and resversatrol products. An earlier this year the Better Business Bureau warned about Web sites using ‘misleading sales and marketing practices’ to promote acai-berry products.”
I’ve read all the archive comments in your original post, and wow was that entertaining… Lattimore kills me with his awesome pills!
Anyway, Woot! posted a video that sort of reminded me of the Mon Avie people and their rabid pimping of this juice, hopefully it lightens things up a little. One of the commentators does drop the F-bomb at the end, so don’t play it in your cube(if you work for the Man.)
If you haven’t chatted with a lawyer about this, it might be wise to do so.
Not being a lawyer myself, I can’t comment on the validity or nonvalidity of this outfit’s silly claim. However, having been married over 20 years to a lawyer who was active in free speech issues, I’d guess that this lawsuit is intended to create a chilling effect on all negative speech related to MonaVie and its products. They will try to nail your tuchus the wall if you don’t fight back.
They’re wrong, IMHO, but let’s not forget that agricultural lobbyists succeeded in inducing lawmakers to make it illegal to “libel” food by reporting on any kind of possible health hazard various manufactured or real foods might pose.
“Trademark dilution,” BTW, has to do with using a trademarked term in a generic way (for example, using the word “kodak” to mean any camera, “kleenex” to mean any tissue paper, or “brillo” to use any soap-saturated scouring pad), with linking a trademarked term to some other product (for example, “Kodak Computer Monitors”), or with associating it with something it is not. As an example of the latter, a film company in Seattle had a mail-order service going used Kodak’s classic color scheme in its ads and packaging: that was a variety of trademark dilution.
Speaking about a trademarked brand name or letting it be used in an electronically generated URL resulting from the correct use of the trademarked term in the course of the exercise of free speech is not trademark dilution. Give me a break!
I’ve spoken with multiple lawyers and they think I’m in the clear.
hey lazy man, I know nothing about mona vie, but do have a phd in cellular and molecular neuroscience as well as years of post-doctoral work in pharmacology in the area of prostaglandins and inflammation. Any time a herbal/nutritional supplement co claims “research” they are basically manipulating the system, and not using science. where are there placebo-controlled, double blind studie guidlines, where are the data and who approved the design and interpretation of the data and studies? as far as the lawsuit thing goes, it you loose on the url thing, and want to continue to be sure people know what you are directing your blog at, then maybe include something like “phonetic-moan-of-e” (or ee or eee-just enough to say your different and that monavie does not have the right to the sound of their trademark-something like that or along those lines). big Co. bullying is bullshit!!!!!!!!
As a monavie drinker (not distributor) I look for negative information like this to see if I have been fooled. Since I buy on ebay and I do not have to be part of a stupid MLM racket, I can only assume they do think you are a distributor. Monavie has helped me (no colds or flu) and a lower appetite justifies some of the cost, but I do have a nagging doubt.
Keep up the fight to defend your right to speak out.
Alexander,
How do you know that MonaVie has helped you. I used to get colds and flu a few years ago (a few a year), but I haven’t gotten any in the last three or so. I didn’t drink MonaVie, so maybe it’s just coincidence.
I think an apple will give you a lower appetite as well, since it has more calories, more fiber, and is cheaper… so it’s still a poor financial choice.
So what’s next? Are they going to file a lawsuit over this? Any more threatening letters? This is crazy. So if I’m critiquing the iphone, and the title of my blog post says “iPhone has terrible battery life,” and the word “iphone” is part of the link…they can sue me???
MonaVie’s approach is interesting, to say the least.
A local MonaVie distributor recently posted a comment to a LinkedIn group I belong to. Does that mean he violated his distributor agreement?
The distributor’s comment received a response from another group member, questioning the product’s claimed benefits. I then posted, asking the responder to cite references for her statements. The distributor immediately heaped praise on me, assuming I was siding with him. When I clarified I was merely asking for support for the statements made, the distributor began attacking me. Clearly, such tactics are business as usual for MonaVie and its distributors.
I think they could’ve thought you were a distributor because of the post name which states “was my wife recruited to a scam” or something like that… so it implies that, at least, your wife is a distributor. Gotta love getting sued over freedom of speech. It happened to me a few years back. Funny thing, they just moved the content to chillingeffects so people can still find it. haha
Emily-Nicole,
At first I didn’t understand why it implied my wife was a distributor, because I was using a version of recruit as in “to attempt to acquire the services of a person”, but I can see that it can also be the actual joining.
Learn something new I guess.
Lazy Man, did they send any more letters or did they drop it? I’m curious to see what they did.
I haven’t received any more communication from them.
Hello,
It seems like we’re in the same boat.
I own monavie.mobi and I just received the second “Cease and Desist” Email from them.
Do you think I should give this domain to them?
Yeah, you are probably going to lose that fight. There’s a difference between owning a domain that has trademarked terms in it and using it in the path.
So since you said they sent the email we are suppose to believe you, I mean you are Anti Monavie. Why do you delete peoples post that disagree with you?
Can we agree that you can believe Consumer Reports’ website, the Consumerist. That outlines the situation with MonaVie’s offical side of the story.
I don’t delete any posts that disagree with me. Did you read comment #44 here, where a MonaVie employee called me an “annoying douche”?
You can read more information about that here.
And if you don’t believe me about all that, why not check out the comments of MonaVie’s official blog where they admit to it.
Why not check with MonaVie themselves?
I have worked for UPS since (before) MonaVie was around.. I have witnessed the novelty-based surge and its recent (drastic) decline. We’re almost rid of this incarnation of snake oil. What’s the next pyramid scheme to debunk?
Heather Seamons is an idiot. She never gives a direct answer to any good legal questions, i.e., why does Monavie allow all these people to sell monavie on e-bay (which a distributor is not allowed to do) and they use the Monavie name of course and sell the product cheaper than a distributor can purchase it. She will never answer. It is a joke.
Why do you knock a product before you have tried it? People with negative attitudes have negative results regardless of they do. Say what you must, but Monavie works wonders for me… and I am already on my way to financial freedom.
Please read The Problem with the “Try MonaVie” Argument.
Excuse me sir but this article is absurd. MonaVie is a fantastic company. The people who give it a bad rep. are the people who don’t stick it out. I was a construction worker from Minocqua, WI. at the age of 22 I saw the MonaVie/Team plan, my landlord showed me. I am now 24yrs. old, A monavie Gold Executive and am 100% Job Optional. Why???… Because I didn’t listen to all you critics who said it was a scam. Look at MonaVie in the Better Business Bureau. They rate Monavie A+ and Team is rated A now tell me the Better Business Bureau is a SCAM. Also INC. MAG Sept 2009 issue rated monavie #1 functional food and beverage, #3 in Revenue, and #18 Overall. MonaVie went to $1billion in sales in 41 months why??? CAUSE IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!
Excuse me sir, but this article is the absolute truth. MonaVie did everything in it. You can read about it in The Consumerist including MonaVie’s comment where they admit that they were wrong.
I’m not and have never been involved with MonaVie. Thus clearly it is quite possible to give MonaVie a bad rep. without “sticking it out.” In this case MonaVie gave itself a bad rep. by having no clue about how the Internet works.
As for your claim of being a Gold Executive, it is worth noting that you happen to be about 700 in 700,000 distributors. I got the 700 number by looking at MonaVie’s Income Disclosure Statement and used the math that is explained here to come up with the 700,000 number. As you can tell, you are the lucky 1 in 1000. Your good fortune has mathematically hurt many, many others financially. It is a like Bernie Madoff being proud of pyramid scheme. The correct emotion here to have is shame.
As for all your claims:
– Remember that MonaVie recently had a D- Better Business Bureau Rating… and it also looks like MonaVie Paid for Better Grade from the Better Business Bureau. And if you read that second article, yes, you’ll find out that the BBB is coming under fire – I reference an LA Times investigative story. However, even Connecticut Attorney General said, “Right now, this rating system is really unworthy of consumer trust or confidence. He has sent an official demand letter asking the BBB to discontinue the ratings system because it is “potentially harmful and misleading.”
– Inc. Magazine didn’t include MonaVie in its 2010 rankings at all. Why? Well you have to understand Inc. Magazine’s odd methodology and what its rankings really mean. Also, Inc. Magazine has published this article against MLM scams like MonaVie… a full 7 years before MonaVie existed. I recommend everyone read about Eliot there.
– Lastly, there is no credible evidence that MonaVie did $1 billion in retail sales. Considering it lies about the ORAC score of its own juice, it would be hard to give any credibility to such statements.
However, of course a Gold level MonaVie distributor would know all the above. That person would also know that they need to leave their name and distributor ID when posting on blogs, right? Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Cory, yet another scammer.