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Most of the companies that have signed have agreed on a contract that has a clause protecting their webmasters not requiring that they pay license fees for the ability to be an affiliate.
It was mostly a scare tactic for the big companies I think. They tried to foce the big boys to sign - the big boys said GFY! so they went after the source of their income and scared the source into submission. The webmasters started pulling their links meaning that profits dropped - Acacia is winning the battle by any means they can come up with to do so. The only way that anyone could have won this battle is for *everyone* to tell Acacia where to go and how to get there. I imagine most of the big boys signed a 1x license fee rather than an ongoing percentage in which case, the easiest way to beat Acacia now is for EVERYONE to actually sign with the sites that signed with Acacia for a one time license fee giving them nobody else to go after and no further income. With nobody left to go after, what will they do? Then we can step out and fight the patent without any fear of recourse.
Most of the smaller webmasters pulled their links at the first thought of getting sued, which affected the traffic to the sites of pornbucks et al. Served with the prospect of making no money due to having no affiliates, or paying a portion of their profits to these extortionists, what would you do? You'd rather make *some* money than none at all, right? I would - that's what business is about.
Before you make judgement against these companies, think about the solution instead of bad mouthing the companies that are looking out for their best interests. This situation can still be beat, it just needs us to work together to come up with a solution.
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