Quote:
Originally posted by DrGuile
You have a good idea and seem to be a good person, but the way you are "piggy-backing" on the effort of the IMPAI group is shameless.
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I have talked to Spike and Far-L many times on the phone, so we already understand each other and support each other's efforts.
There is some confusion here about IMPA.
So many people believe that by donating to the IMPA, that the money goes to paying for attorneys in the fight against Acacia.
This is clearly not the case..
IMPA is an Association. Associations have members... and what has not been made clear to everyone (and i have said this recently to them) that people are confused.
Look at this page:
http://www.impai.org/join.html
(website is back up)
This is a join page for membership to the association. For those that donated money to IMPA, and I salute you for getting involved, did you get a membership card?
Did you know that rather than donating to IMPA, that you could show your support by joining them? You get their newsletter, access to their website, etc...
I haven't seen one post to give any indication that people knew this...so for the thread where people were donating to IMPA, those people's donations should probably first be converted into "membership" and the rest of the money over the $100 level would be the "donation"
I can only assume that you donated to IMPA and that you of course knew all of this information and are now a card-carrying member... but so many don't. I know this for a fact in the number of people who contact me over the confusion and on the posts that i read on this board.
Being a member means yearly payment of the dues. People join associations like Free Speech Coalition etc, to be apart of a group that is being active on a cause they believe in.
FTPF is not an association, it is to be a non-profit foundation that fights against all kinds of patent abuse cases.
IMPA is an association that is looking after business issues that concern adult webmasters.
There is a Defense Fund that the defendants put money into, to pool their resources to pay for attorney time.
If you want to help the defendants cover some of their financial burden in having legal representation, then you can donate to the Defense Fund....
When it comes to asking webmasters for money, yes we are competing for the webmaster's limited dollars, that's a fact that we understand.
How our organizations work is very different. If I can't generate enough pledges to reach the goal, then FTPF won't be able to form.
IMPA will still be around, since the founding members are the defendants against Acacia's lawsuits. IMPA is trying to get industry support to look after industry issues. Patents are just 1 facet of what they are covering, and it is this issue where we overlap.. but there is great synergy.
Fight the Patent!