A California jury has found that Beats Electronics founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine owe $25.25 million to an entrepreneur who worked on the first model of their iconic headphones, holding that the music moguls breached a contract entitling the early co-creator to royalties.
The lawsuit alleged that Beats Electronics duped one of its early partners before negotiating its $3 billion sale to Apple. Monster CEO Lee said in the suit that he and Monster invented the technology behind the Beats headphones. The suit claims that Beats co-founders Iovine and Dre (Andre Young) — both of whom now work for Apple — committed fraud in pirating the headphones away from Lee and Monster.
The suit charged that the Beats co-founders concealed the role of Monster and Lee in designing and engineering the headphone line, as well as educating them about engineering, manufacturing, distributing and selling the headphones that Monster and Lee invented.
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