I think I have a solution to the patent issue
 

Hey,

This is probably going to be length so bare with me. I was laying in bed last night and thinking (I do my best thinking in the 20 mins prior to falling asleep for some reason) and this hit me. I have been going over it this morning in my head and I think this is it (please ignore my horrible spelling).

I listened to the interview with the patent owner last night and it was a great interview (if you haven't listened to it I would say listen to it and learn a lot). A few thing that was said stuck out and from that I have formulated a plan......


a) There will be no "double dipping" - if a company that offers video feeds has licensed with them, then the person who leases the video feeds does not need to have a license.


b) An affiliate is legal defined in the interview is "somebody that has 50% or more ownership in a company" (he was very clear that the adult term affilate is nothing close to the legal definition)


c) There is no way in his mind to differenciate the income derived from the streaming videos used by a company and the income derived from the pictures and stories on a persons site so that is why they are asking for up to 2% of your gross revenues. He did add, however, that if there was a way to determine exactly how much income was derived from the streaming videos that he would be happy to hear it and if legit a deal could more than likely be reached.



From these statements, I came up with this......


What prevents a couple of adult webmasters from forming a company that offers video feeds to themselves? Lets say you own a company (LLC) that has 10 paysites, each with 1000s of videos available for download. My plan would be for you to team up with 2 or more other people in the same boat to make another company (another LLC) that sole purpose in life would be to hosts all of the videos you currently have on your sites. Then you turn around and lease those videos to your other companies for $1 a month. The 3 (or more) members of your video leasing company could split the $1500 registation fee and then agree to pay the 2% of your gross revenue on your video fees (your total gross income would be $36 if there was three of you). You do not lease those videos to anybody but your other companies. You are talking about an initial investment of about what , $500.12 for the first year, and $0.12 for every year after in your 2% processing fees. Being as there are three equal owners to your video feed company, none of you are "affiliates" of that company (being as you are less that 50% owners) so your income from your other businesses would not be included in your 2% annual fees. Even if you charge enough to cover that persons portion of your bandwidth costs (say what $300 a month = $3600 a year, 2% would only be $72 a year). Being as there is no double dipping, the video feed company has already bought the license so your paysites would not need too.


Damn I am good - LOL (kidding)


Flow


p.s. I also got this idea from an article I posted before and will repost for your reading pleasure here:

"It seems that Unisys finally discovered their patent in 1989 and started working out licensing terms. In 1994, after signing a licensing agreement for the GIF format, CompuServe attempted to pass the licensing costs on to its users. Confusion and anger reigned, and the LZW-free PNG format was the ultimate result of an attempt to avoid the licensing costs.

Things settled back down after CompuServe, Adobe, Corel, and other companies began licensing the algorithm. Then some companies apparently found a way to avoid paying royalty-based licensing fees. They charged for image editing software that did not support the GIF format, but included a free GIF plug-in with the software package.

Unisys keeps tightening its policies in an effort to eliminate these attempts at avoiding royalty payments on commercial software. But in doing so they seem to have made it difficult for some who want to license the technology."




Substitute a few phrases with whatever you think might apply. Those phrases to substitue are.....


a) Image Editing Software

b) GIF

c) Software package

Listen to him again. The plugin providers don't pay anything, but the paysites do - it's based on subscriptions.
So your ten paysites would still be liable to pay 2% on ALL memberships they sold.

The answer actually is to sell your paysites to some fool who'll be liable for the licensing fee, then sit back and have him also pay *you* to provide all the content for the site as a plugin.

That is, if you're so worried about 2% that you think you need to try to find a way to get out of it.

Actually you are wrong here (I took notes). There was a very specific question asked about people that offer video feeds paying the licensing feed and then the person leasing those video feeds having to "double dip" pay for it. He was clear that if only one would have to pay. If the leasing company did not pay, then the paysite owner would have to pay for using them but there would be no double dipping.

If your new LLC bought the license, the paysite owners would not have to pay as this would be the form of double dipping that was talked about.


Flow

BTW I am not worried about 2%, I don't use videos or video pluggins on any of my sites. Just trying to help a brother/sister when they are down.

I do this as a hobby for some extra play money outside of my real job.

Flow

This guy has an excellent point -- he is thining correctly. These Acacia people are too slow for us -- we can quickly change the environment like sliced up starfish -- and the lawyers will have no fucking idea where to scramble to next... half the shit in the D-Money interview the guy had no idea about -- and it will get even more complicated for them to follow our activities.

What they don't understand is it's not about the 2% -- it's the fucking principle behind this -- we haven't EVER paid for shit -- and that's the way it's going to stay.

Do you remember when .ZIP tried to charge money for compression? HAHA that was a joke -- then we all just switched to .ARJ and .LZH, etc... .ZIP lost all their biz, so they decided to go back to giving it away free and it's still free today.

I will read for you the hacker ethic:

From the book HACKERS by Steven Levy Copyright 1984

1. Access to computers--and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works--should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imerative!

2. ALL INFORMATION SHOULD BE FREE!

3. Mistrust Authority--Promote Decentralization.

4. Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race or position.

5. You can create art and beauty on a computer.

6. Computers can change your life for the better.

Anyway there are loophole ideas but I doubt people are going to share them here in the public now.

if you read between the lines, that does have some merit to it. good find :thumbsup

Excellent point Fly

If a judge decides in favor of Acacia, we're simply going to have to change very quickly. There's no environment more dynamic than the web, and if Acacia thinks they can charge this entire industry they're in for a surprise :)

my idea was... some one get incorporated... pay them their stupid fine.. so you can legally host video's on your site.

then another affiliate site could sell them .00000001% of their business.. that makes the people that can legally view movies on the site part over.. and they have a license so they cannot sue the business... would that work?

listent to it again...

he did say no double dipping, but he was saying this:


For a content company, the only time they're gonna have to pay for the liscence is if they send their clips via FTP, and if they offer video clip samples to other webmasters....


on the other hand, the paysite owners (which he refers as webmasters) will have to pay 2% of gross on all memberships...


the only way around it for a paysite owner would be to seperate the movie section from the picture section, and offer an extra 1$ to get the movie section... doing this, I believe, would DEFINE EXACTLY what the usage from the movies is....

(also my apologies about the bad English, it's not my native language)

I've taken notes also and i have some nice ideas which might help us to get around their patent but since i still doubt that they can clam that each and every download of a video or song is covered by their patent this isn't a major issue yet. For now we should try to let the judges see that their claim is not reasonable at all and that they are just trying to scam us out of our hard earned dollars.

BUT your idea is not valid, before the interview i had the same idea but during the interview he claimed that they could go after any or all who manufacture, use, offer for sale and sell the technology. It was acacisux who decided to only charge the webmaster who was getting the recurring revenue be course that makes them the most money. Any moves we make to transfer the obligation to license the patent won't work be course they can choose who they charge.

I'm sorry that your 'great plan' doesn't work but you were doing what you're supposed to do, thinking about how we can get those gold diggers off our backs.

What was said in the show and what is brought forth in the court room will be two different takes. Trust that Acacia will not be saying anything that can be used to outwit them. lol

That part bugged the shit of me me too.........if content providers are not targets.........WHY did so many Content Providers get served? And some are even in court now?

:mad:

Exactly, the guy on the show was just explaining what the lawyers were telling him to explain. These guys know what their are doing, trying to get us to pay them, no matter what. NEVER make the mistake to think that these guys are worried about their reputation!

For me personally these people are exactly the kind of guys that made me decide to get into the adult business, i used to be a business economics student. I was trained to make money no mater what, if you can scam anyone out of his money whit out legal consequences you are cool... not my kind of business.

Now I'm doing porn and studying sociology :-)

I suggest you understand one simple thing about this stuff:

The way they license their technology to you is their business. They can change the way any time they want. The 2% is a SUGGESTION from them. If you make them another offer and they like it, they will go for it.

If you start looking for loopholes in their current license, think again, they will just go and either not license it to you at all or ask you for some other license in some other terms.

people, ACACIA reads the boards,lets not give them any bright ideas,if ther eis discussion forward your questions and concerns to the IMPA

Here is the simple solution.... FUCK this company! Make all your video downloadable and not streaming.

2% of the gross... who the fuck do they think they are? Don't even get me started on this..... :feels-hot :mad:

Good, let them read this....


GO FUCK YOURSELF ACACIA!!!!!!!

From me... to You! :321GFY

well at least since the show is recorded im sure its admissable as evidence if nothing else.

if the lawyers can argue a case with it it would be wonderful.

The license will be better formulated than the original patent, if you want to avoid paying them you shouldn't be looking at the license! The license is some thing you agree to or not, you can't dispute the license. You can dispute the validity of the patent thou.

Trust me, the license is always good for Acacia THEY can choose who they license to and under what conditions. The only thing you can say to a license is yes:you guys are right, no:you guys are wrong (but the wrong has to be proven of coarse) or: I'M NOT SURE... I'LL HAVE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE EXACT TECHNOLOGY IS YOU ARE OFFERING TO LICENSE ME, PLEASE EXPLAIN. I'LL HAVE TO UNDERSTAND WHY I NEED YOUR LICENSE TO CONTINUE MY OPERATIONS. Ok... but WHY do i need yout techology to offer a download ?? Can you prove it???

thnx to the D-money show.

Ok let's try something here: Acacia said that they are going to charge anyone for conspiracy if they posted: "if you receive a Acasisux package please contact me first"

just to support the guys who will be charged:
If you receive a Acacia package please contact me first before you contact them! Contact info j @ (fuckspambots) nnes.b i z. I have great info for you!

I'm in Europe, lets invite them to start law suits all over the world :-) (eh... Europe has many countries off coarse... ) (fuck... this is also a conspiracy or not?..) (if you join me just to get other web masters to join we have an other conspiracy :-))

jannes

Sorry, your proposed solution isn't such thing. To prove it to yourself, pull up the actual patent in your browser and try to find the word streaming in it.

(edited to emphasise the missing word in the patent)

As contracts, licensing agreements are subject to state laws and federal anti-trust laws.

i still don't understand how the goverment basically allowed them to patent downloading something on the internet...

Why look for a loophole in the license when you can avoid the patent entirely? I can't get any more specific than that :)

We might need something "invite only" :)

They can ask you to sign a contract saying that you will pay them 99% of all income since the day you were born. They cannot, however, threaten you into signing a totally unfair contract with false claims or the contract will not be upheld in any court.

If anyone signs the contract asking for any substantial percentage of you annual income and access to your books, they are stupid. The exception to this is the people who Acacia may be giving a free deal just so they can impress their shareholders that they actually go someone to sign, if that is happening, which no one knows.

People would be much better off fighting Acacia in court, even if the bogus patent was upheld. No judge is going to give Acacia unlimited access to your books and most likely no judge is going to give them a big percentage of your gross income.

No matter which way this goes, if you plan to have a future in the adult business, you are better off fighting Acacia.

Acacia have made an ambit claim based on their belief they own all the patents necessary to say they own the process of sending video over the net.

They have not yet proved their claim, some people have signed licence agreements with Acacia however to do so is only to make the business decision that settling is easier than fighting.

Acacia do not own all the patents necessary to say they have complete ownership of the process of making video available on the net, they have a collection of patents that have undetermined value as no test has been made of their claims.

If you settle with Acacia, do so on the basis that (1) you are simply doing it as an initially low cost way to set the issue aside (2) that if the patents are invalidated or if it is proven that their collection of patents does not give them ownership of the process of streaming that any agreement you make is void.