Quote:
Originally posted by Nismo
I dont own any paysites, or do design, nor do I own a TGP. I just push other peoples/business' sites like ARS, silvercash, etc, yet I got an acacia letter. Should I be worried?
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Sounds like you are an affiliate to sponsors....
Acacia's claims against you are that you are a "contributory infringer"..sending traffic to sponors that haven't licensed their patent and you are profiting from that arrangement.
Yes, it does sound absurd to me too.. but that's what they claim.
Ken released several statements about Hustler saying that because Hustler signed, any webmaster that was an affiliate would not have to get a license.
The problem is that most webmasters have more than 1 sponsor.. so it seems that Acacia would have to figure out what percentage of your income came from "infringing sponsors" and charge you accordingly. So if you ran Hustler banners, and other sponsor banners, you are not free from Acacia's claims, only free of the percentage of revenue you derived from Hustler.
Same goes with all other sponsors that settled.
The by-product of this licensing/settling is that as an affiliate who might be faced with an eminent lawsuit by Acacia, may feel they should only use sponsor programs that signed...therefore "convincing" other sponsors to settle, otherwise, they start to lose affiliates.
Patents have a way of reducing competition by selectively CHOOSING WHO YOU WANT TO OFFER A LICENSE.
So Acacia could pick and choose who they wanted to ALLOW to license their patent... conspiracy theorists start thinking about this one.
Fight the Patent!