maybe i missed this skimming thru the thread but how would Acacia know how long you have had streaming video on a membership site/content site/etc?

they are stating that they will go as far back as six years but what is to say a webmaster doesnt fight back stating he/she only put up streaming video a week ago?

how can they prove that?

Cassie: There are many ways. Alexa Way Back Machine comes to mind, but more importantly, you cannot lie. PERIOD.

I would think the only legal way would be to supeona the hosting companies that webmasters work with both now and in the past. Otherwise everything else is "hear say" for a lack of better wording.

Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't Microsoft the first to come out with streaming technology; ie, netmeeting?


edit: the first comsumer usable technology.

I'm not sure how it works... but maybe the burden of proof is on the patent infringer?


Either way... what about them getting X% of GROSS....

Like someone said long ago, I'd like to see them try to get X% of Microsoft's gross revenues.

Who knows? But if they do prove it and someone committed perjury, it probably won't go well for them.

that would be interesting to see how they would approach a company that large!

As soon as you get a site up, support will be given by us, that's for sure.

Law suit happy Americans that are too fucking stupid and lazy to make their own honest living. Fuck me.

Did I read somewhere that these guys are sueing Hustler, also?

If Larry Flynt still is the same way he was in the 70's, I think this could be there biggest mistake. I really hope Hustler, along with the rest, fight this one to the fullest.

Or will we see a movie about Far-L and Spike from HomeGrown 10 years from now?

I think bigger companies and entities like Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo!, Major League Baseball, etc... that all have streaming video or do business with streaming video need to be approached in a way about this that shows down the road, they could be hit hard by this.

Lets say that these malakas win against the adult industry. Now they have a leg to stand on against non-adult companies making money with streaming video. They are playing it smart. Go against the industry that some in America look down on. They win against us, now they have a case to reference against anyone else using streaming video. I wouldn't doubt this is there thought process.

Major League Baseball has a huge campaign going to buy streaming videos of games across the internet. I would think they need to realize they could get hit in the future.

How about the music industry with streaming music videos? Music industry loves lawsuits. They need to be involved to fight this, too.

The sad thing is they probably won't help out because they don't want to be involved with the adult industry. But this could bite them in the ass later, I think.

I would like to know if Fantasyman or some holding company of his got stock in Acacia..........

If I was a betting man, I would say yes. But of course you will never get a straight answer out of Ron Levi.

I don't believe ron would skirt the issue. he has too good a rep to skirt the issue.

so lets ask him and see, it would really clear the air on this issue.

Ron - many people in the industry would like to know. Did you or any of your companies recently accquire any stock in acacia?

So basically their entire business depends on suing peole....

Revenues (Units in Thousands of U.S. Dollars $)
Quarter 2002 2003
Q1 0 6
Q2 0 --
Q3 0 --
Q4 43 --

Total 43 6

is this what this country has resorted to....legalized extortion?

honestly, what makes acacia any different then the guy who took down this board (and dont say lawyers cause most of them are more illegal in their ways then a death row inmate at rahway state pen)?

the alternative is letting anyone steal your intellicutial property or not haveing the ability to sell your intellicutial property to anyone.......

as far as I see it (and I fully admit I'm an idiot) the problem with acacia is that there is a lot of rhumors about technology that preceeded it invaladuating their claim. as long as that can be substaintatiated they will loose. if that can't be proven, we're ALL fucked.

the internet has basically been around for 30 or so years (going on 20 for consumers). im an just as clueless as you, but wouldnt it be safe to say that even before multimedia corps and microsoft, et al, that nasa and the governement had some sort of streaming media?

if any of that is correct, then how does a company, such as this one, go after our govt? could they invoke their patents (of what they think to be their patents) on our govt, millitary, space program.....etc?

i cant even believe the courts are hearing these cases or reading the documents to consideer hearing these cases! what a total waste of tax payers money.

i'm going to patent the technique of breathing so everyone from the time they were born will have to pay me for every time they took a breath :)

it's not a matter of SOME sort of streamig media. it's a specific question of the technology behind mpeg video.

No stock was acquired by anyone or any company with this license.

CECash did not have to identify any vendors or affiliates. CECash will never identify anyone or any company to any company.

This will not effect any payouts or affiliates.

This was done to stop any 'patent infringement' liability going back 6 years which could have been in the low 8 figures. It's an insurance policy for CE.

Acacia has no intention of going after Microsoft as they do not generate revenue with streaming. They're only interested in folks who generate income from streaming.

It's funny how Acacia disclosed CE's license, but didn't disclose the other adult parties who have licensed, read between the lines.

CECash will continue to support the litigation against Acacia and hope those efforts are successful.

that statement makes me feel a little better about this.....

Far-L: I would be very interested in asking you some questions about this issue for an article I am going to write for Webmaster Vault. If you are interested please email me at [email protected]. Thanks in advance,

Muffy

that's not the exact way we 're phrasing it, but we're working on it . . . :thumbsup

People are forgetting some basics about the way internet porn works...about how internet porn is produced.

Certainly Acacia can shake down the "easy" targets of "institutional" porn. And they (institutional porn) may occasionally settle to protect past profits. But, institutional porn is somewhat bloated with declining profit margins. Institutional porn has a fairly low profit margin compared to "noninstitutional" porn. Penthouse magazine will probably be gone inside of a year.

Internet porn is a very fluid medium, With very easy access to anyone with imagination, and a very level playing field.

UNTIL Acacia can force the issue on Microsoft, and web hosts and e-commerce companies, the internic, and Sony, any college kid with a $500 DV camera and a girlfriend that will suck him off can create the newest POV site, and take in $. And this is currently happening thousands of times every single day.

And surfers do respond to this personal approach. So Acacia shakes down the big guys, but they will be forever playing "whackamole" with the little guys who will continue to rake in fairly big numbers collectively, simply because they CAN produce good quality porn cheaply, get it online cheaply, and collect the money...and this is a kind of porn that surfers DO buy memberships to, and with fairly high conversion ratios---in fact, probably higher conversion ratios than less personal institutional porn can deliver.

In the end the surfers will level the playing field. Acacia will have to tackle Microsoft and wmv. and Sony. And, EVEN if they do, there will be only so much $ they can siphon off, because in the END it is the PURCHASERS of porn who will determine how much total $ there is to siphon off. You have to follow the $ trail.

As they say, the genie is already out of the bottle. IMO Acacia is about 10 years too late coming to the table.

CE might have stepped on their dick settling with Acacia. Because their vast affiliate bunch probably WILL not settle with Acacia. And because their affiliates will not settle with Acacia, they risk losing their affiliate base, or absorbing fees their affiliates would have paid. Most affiliates are not big players with long-term contracts. Most are not "married" to CE Cash. All it takes is the money dynamic to change a little bit, and they abandon ship.

Watch it happen if they are squeezed.

blah blah blah ........... drivel. u just make up this term 'institutional porn'?

Go look at the lawsuits, they weren't all the size of Cybererotica, they went after small fries too.

You seem to be under the impression that if Acacia prevails there is nothing they can do against the masses of smaller webmasters with video on their websites.

They will happily play whackamole all day long with small webmasters should their patents be upheld.

Far-L:

please set up a paypal donation link soon. i'd like to help out.

Interesting.

Now i'm certainly inquiring about things that are none of my business.

That sentence seems carefully worded.

What about one of your other companies that did not sign a license? Or you personally?

If you're not comfortable answering i'd certainly understand.

I figured this would happen --

BUT

Brad Shaw is probably right... Like these lawyers have a fucking clue about the technology. I was downloading video before these guys ever knew what a computer was. If anyone would have first use or patents it would be IBM.

Mark my words -- these lawyers have no clue about first use -- there will be no way to delineate first use. To define video you really have to look at resolution, frame rate, etc... You could go all the way back to Pong with this if you wanted to :1orglaugh. Way before anyone was downloading video by BBS, the academics and research labs were doing video over internal internets, etc. This whole thing is silly. You watch and see this Acacia stuff is all smoke and mirrors.

I don't know the specifs of Acacia's claims on the technology, but you can't fuck with nerds... This has happened time and time again -- some guy claims that he patented the hyperlink... You know what happened with that one.



This is like one of those urban legends "oh my god the government is going to tax email!" :1orglaugh

Who cares about stock -- even if there was a secret handshake on this deal -- do you really think you would find out about it? :1orglaugh

Don't be stupid. Acacia is on the phone with me right now -- they're sending over hookers to keep me quiet!

That might work. If they claim to own this technology then the porn industry can treat them like napster. Napster merely provided the technology to the copyright violators; Napster
never copied the music themselves.

GO FOR IT!!!!

Remember when the music industry sued to prevent the sale of digital tape machines know as DAT recorders.
It definately has a chance. If they make you pay then sue them so they can't use the technology to violate your copyright.

Their patent seems like bullshit anyway. It's just a sequence of events. If their patent holds up then I will copyright the sequence of events to walk or ride a bike.

150 BLING BLING!

If Acacia wins in court they will stop these college kids at the source - processors. A processor that frequently has issues with Acacia after a win in court might find themselves in court too. After all, they would be making money off of people infringing on their patent.

No processing = no money.

Hooper sharp eye. Not even sure what Ron owns now, he has moved things around so much the past couple years. But this reaks of something funny.

Hoper you keep trying to find something when there is nothing to find. I do not own any stock in Acacia, nor does any entity that CE is involved in. What more would you like to know?

The funny part about this is Acacia scours these boards and you, by yourself are identifying yourself for Acacia, not me. They have done their homework and picked out CE to exploit, I can't do anything about that.

I personally have not signed any license because I no longer own CECash or CE. In fact, my consulting agreement is coming to a close with CE and very soon have nothing left to do with same.

I will say CE stands in a better position regarding its future than anyone else who has not licensed. You figure it out.

Fair enough, that answers my question. Thanks.

If they scour these boards then i'm sure they know who everybody is and is not. I happen to think that acacia represents virtually everything that is wrong with this country.

They are people trying to get a hand out that they do not deserve, no difference between them and the beggars/con men on the street, except that they wear suits and ties.

That's it in a nutshell. Money grubbing lawyers who couldn't find their dick with two hands are now claiming they have a right to a piece of your profits for something they didn't invent. They probably have never even seen streaming media unless twelve year old Jimmy from down the block showed it to them.

America, the land of lawsuits.

Scour this Acacia :321GFY

Suck my bitwise operator :1orglaugh

That's nerd humor for "suck my left one"

Oh my god this guy is a bucket of toad slime.


Some interesting articles in this list: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Aca...=10&fl=0&x=wrt

if anyone feels like researching this out a bit more.



Now, where is that donation link so we can contribute to the fight to slap down these Acacia dickwads? This could go on for years..... if 5,000 webmasters all pitched in $10, $20, $50 or $100 each, that could make all the difference.

You gotta love the hypocrisy here.

I'll bet you whatever you want to bet that in Ron's shoes many would have done the same or worse.

He says no affiliates are going to be 'turned over' so that's pretty big to start with. If he's supporting IMPA then he's still fighting but there's no law against hedging your bets.

"I personally have not signed any license because I no longer own CECash or CE"


And my last name is not Shaw anymore!

So who owns CE now? A myriad of Nevada corps. and offshore corps.