Acacia
 

OK, I have a few questions about this.

They are asking for 2% of your gross. Does that mean 2% of ALL gross revenue you earn in this business or 2% of the gross revenue earned from sites with streaming videos on them? I have pay sites with videos but a significant % of my income comes from Adult Check Gold sites where I don't use any videos at all. And why is it 2% of the gross? That seems extremely unfair.

Second, why are they asking for recurring fees instead of a flat fee of, say, $100.00? If they charged everyone a hundred bucks they'd still make a bundle and would'nt have to pay their lawyers all that money to take people to court.

Third, did Acacia actually create the technology for streaming video or did they just buy the patent in order to make money?

Fourth, do they want 2% from the webmaster AND 2% from the company he purchased the video rights from? If the producer has already paid the licensing fee why should the webmaster have to pay it again? How much fucking money do they need?

Fifth, are they going to want 2% from affiliates who simply promote sponsors that have video content? I can't believe that they would try to do that since it is so friggin' ludicrous.

Didn't someone try to get a patent for hyperlink technology a few years back? What happened with that?

I wish they owned the patent on SPAM.

And finally, is there no end to corporate greed?

1. Yes.
2. Cause they make more and are lawyers.
3. Bought.
4. Everyone pays, they want it all.
5. Yes.
6. No there is not.

Shouldn't someone turn around and sue Acacia for something?

Can they just wildly claim they own everything, even when they don't? Is there some system by which companies being harassed can get money from Acacia once Acacia loses?

cheers.

:glugglug

I asked the same thing over at the Pond..I been curious myself.

For what I have read...it sounds BS to me.
If that the case..gonna open up alot of doors for lawsiuts where people claim this and that.


I don't see how they can get away with this, but I maybe wrong. maybe they can.

Yup, and OJ did not kill his wife. We can always trust the legal system.

When Cohen was threatening to sue everyone with "sex" in their domain name, didn't someone get a judge to step in and order him to leave people alone?

I'm in Australia, I wonder when Acacia will come after me :)

Personally if I was some of the people at Acacia I would probably be considering increasing my personal security. There is no doubt that when you start trying to meddle with peoples revenue steams that one or two will get a little crankier than others.

As far as I know, Logie-Baird came up with the idea of sending video from one place to another using wires or radio. Until Acacia can show me otherwise I wont be caving into them.

Lets see all the earlier examples of sending video from one place to another.. slow scan tv, television, telephonic fax, radio fax. Computer based examples of sending moving images, well obviously alot of the stuff we used to do with microcomputers in the early 1980s (no matter how rudimentary) predates Acacias patents.

As far as responding to litigation goes , I'd be looking toward the people who supply me with the technology to deal with video online. Apple, Adobe, my internet providers. These people have made technology available to me to use, encouraged me to do so, they have a part in this somewhere.

The one thing this will do, I hope, is show to the world that patent law needs to be balanced against the common good. This applies to genetic patents and the like. Acacia and companies like them provide no benefit to society. They're akin to leaches.

How often do patents get ruled invalid? Has this ever happened before?

If they actually developed the technology then at least it would be understandable for them to want a piece of the pie. But if they just manipulated the system and bought the rights, then they should rot in hell along with Qsay and Uday.

How the fuck did this happen in the first place? How much cock did they have to suck? They must have excellent oral skills.

Just a quick thought on this. If the unbelievable happened and the patents were upheld in court would there then be a case against people like microsoft for damages? After all, they (along with a few other companies) pushed streaming stuff hard and almost made it impossible not to use it if you are in business on the Internet. I'm obviously pretty ignorant on US law but given much of the crap that goes to court it seems that may be a possibility.

Either way although I understand MS and others not wanting to be associated with defending 'smut peddlers', for them to not jump in at this stage when overturning the claims should still be at least a little straightforward if expensive, seems crazy.

Oh - and on the hyperlink thing above...

Yes there was an attempt to claim ownership of 'hyperlink technology'. It went to court in the UK I believe and the claim was rejected.

What's really stupid is...

You can't patent something if you didn't invent it, but you can turn around and buy patents that you had nothing to do with..

Patents are looked at as the same as real estate in that manner..

Kind makes patents a joke...