Quote:
Originally posted by Eyes_Without_A_Face
latinasojourn:
So, according to you, I (European) don't even have to bother about it?
|
I am not a lawyer, but I know my way around a court room. I owned a business that at one time was hit with about 100 frivolous lawsuits over a 5 year period. (I owned a large California real estate brokerage and was a landlord who had to deal with tenants who were constantly not paying, then crossclaiming me for "habitability" issues, while I was evicting them, etc.")
I have been a defendent, and a plaintiff.
And I have NEVER been beaten in court. I did settle with a very bad tenant once on advice of our insurance carrier to vacate one of my buildings.
My answer to you is this:
IF YOU ARE SUED (which is not the same as receiving a letter from acacia or a glossy information packet) appear in court and demand a jury trial. Let acacia KNOW you will be seeing them in court. Acacia believes that most everyone will settle if threatened by a lawsuit.
DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THIS TYPE OF LAWSUIT. IT IS A CIVIL LAWSUIT, NOT A CRIMINAL LAWSUIT. THE ONLY THING THEY CAN DO TO YOU (IF THEY WIN) IS FORCE YOU TO NOT USE VIDEO ON YOUR WEBSITE(S)---YOU WILL NOT BE GOING TO JAIL.
THE WORST THING THAT WILL HAPPEN TO A SMALL WEBMASTER IS THAT YOU WILL GO THROUGH THE INCONVENIENCE OF PUTTING A NOTICE ON YOUR WEBSITE THAT MEMBERS WILL BE RECEIVING THEIR VIDEOS BY DVD, FEDEXED TO THEM (NOT MAILED).
DVD burners are now less than $200, and the video your members will receive this way will be much higher quality than anything they can receive over the net. In fact, should acacia prevail this will be the new modus operandi for small webmasters---and the big webmasters who settled will not be able to compete with thousands of "boutique" websites that give their members VERY high quality video, and will command monthly fees of close to $50/month recurring. IF you can produce original video this new business model will make you plenty of money. Only crazy people want to stream or download video on the net at this time. There is no comparison to sending a guy a DVD (by fedex) that he can play in his home TV (or computer). NO COMPARISON in quality.
MOST web users throughout the world are at dialup speeds---this will be the way to recapture this huge market---the majority of people on the web need to be satisfied with postage-stamped sized "streaming video" because of low BW considerations.
FEDEX these guys a new DVD each month that he can play on his widescreen projection TV that you can burn for about 2 bucks and he'll pay you $500/year or more and recur like crazy.
If DVD burners were $1000 as they were 2 years ago maybe this approach would not be so feasible for the very small webmaster. But they are $200 now (and dropping). Any small webmaster can burn his own video and command a PREMIUM recurring membership fee by fedexing "the DVD of the month".
In response to your specific question I'll just say this:
The further you are geographically from Southern California, the less likely you are to be sued, because as travel distance increases from Southern Californian so does acacia's expense in attempting to sue you.
Notice who has currently been sued by acacia---it is NO COINCIDENCE that these litigants are all in acacia's backyard.
IT IS VERY EXPENSIVE and NOT FEASIBLE for an entity to sue another entity at long distance---particularly if the financial reward is not great.
If you are a long ways away from southern california, and you don't make much money (under 100k/year) relax and wait for the local process server.
I'm betting you will never see the local process server hand you papers from acacia.