judge throws out acacia infringement complaint

yesterdays news

I believe Acacia is seeking some kind of class action status against all infringers aren't they?

latinasojourn:

So, according to you, I (European) don't even have to bother about it?

perhaps, but that will fail.

Because of their clumsiness they are noticing entities that do not even use video.

Impossible to perfect, and it won't fly.

of course, this is valid for any country you might live. I expect everyone to receive such letter. It's a fish trap.

ill do with them the same thing ive done with every other peice of shit legal or government paper ive gotten so far... shred it then flee to ireland when it all catches up with me

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.

Kinda a redundant thread, another one is talking about Holio and they:

DID NOT SETTLE WITH ACACIA

latinasojourn,great post

because there isnt a california judge stupid enough to vote their way.

I wish Hustler and the rest would have known this.

I dont know about other companies outside of California, but there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY a fucking california judge will stand for such crap.

latinasojourn, you made some interesting points until you started talking about sending members DVDs instead of letting them download the porn instantly.

Great thread

exactly right.

Has everyone now seen the new AOL "broadband" commercials on TV that show the guy downloading a video at high speed on this computer.

THE DAY I SIGN UP WITH ACACIA WILL BE THE SAME DAY MICROSOFT AND SONY AND CNN AND TIME WARNER SIGN WITH ACACIA.

acacia is going nowhere.

Europe is not excempt from Acacia...

Look at their international patents:

http://www.acaciatechnologies.com/patents.htm

If you are in Europe and don't see your country listed, then I am sure you will be covered by EU unity, that does make you applicable to their patent claims.

I know webmasters in Finland, Denmark, and Germany have received letters from Acacia.

In the 3Q conference call, a shareholder asked if they were going to expand into Europe, and they said YES!

I think they wanted to get some licenses under their belt so they could convince IP firms in countries to take up their case.. sharing in the license fees instead of having to pay them to do the work.

It;s coming to Europe...stay tuned...

Fight the Patent!

You left out a very major outcome of losing against Acacia... you will be fined for infringement, retroactive to the first day you made money from the use of digital audio or video files, and if they can prove that you "willfully infringed", then that number is multipled by 3.

It's much more serious than just making you not use video on your website.

I don't believe that Acacia will prevail in court, but I do know that a court trial could run several months, even years.

And most webmasters don't have the cash to handle the lawsuit, let alone $10K-$30K opinion paper from an IP firm to state why they are not infringing, let along the costs for litigation.

This is why I believe they will start getting court orders after Dec. 1st, and allow you to weigh your options of either settling for a lower amount then going to court.


Fight the Patent!

He's just trying to come up with an alternative approach, since Acacia isn't the only company to worry about for digital video downloads.



Fight the Patent!

You are correct that much porn on the net is purchased to be masturbatory, and instant gratification is that specific business model.

But much porn (I'll call it erotica) on the net is not specifically masturbatory in nature.

There are many people that use erotica to get them in the "right mood". There is a growing trend of couples watching smut together to enhance their sexual experience. These people have high tech video right in their bedrooms. My wife has NEVER looked at a computer monitor with me while I look at smut---but she loves to blow me in bed while we both watch a girl/girl video. The point I make is this: adult video rentals are strong, and many are watched at home by both men and women, in bed at night, prior to doing their "thing".

And this particular demographic is slightly more mature, has more $, recurs better, and is a slightly different sale than the solitary jerker who is splattering his monitor.

There are many permutations to the erotica market, and I believe the business model I'm suggesting is viable, and the websites I currently own are not necessarily masturbatory based, but couples based, and they recur well.

There is also a growing trend of women buying erotica, the demographic of women internet users is growing. An erotica sale that can encompass BOTH men and women, intrigue and excite them both, enhance their JOINT erotic experience, enrich their JOINT lives does sale...and sells very well.

Unique, niche type high quality DVDs (the type of stuff you can't rent at the local video outlet) sent monthly by fedex will command a PREMIUM monthly fee.

And this is something that the small webmaster with a DV cam and DVD burner can actually do, for not very much $.

good post , you made up for it being yesterdays news

It might command a premium monthly fee, but way fewer people would want to buy it.

Online porn is an impulse purchase, people want their porn and they want it now! Not next week.

correct FTP, but past "infringements" are hard to prove.

People have to understand something. The basis of a civil lawsuit revolves around the concept of an economic loss to the injured party. If you can't demonstrate and prove the loss, you can't win damages.

To win on "past" infringement acacia must demonstrate to a jury that the little guy with a few downloadblabe videos on his site has caused a loss to acacia.

Any reasonable juror would think, well, Mr. Berman if you knew that "www.mygirlfriendtheharlot.com" was hurting you in 1997 why did you wait till 2002 to send them a letter?

And acacia must prove past infringement. Which means they actually must JOIN all these websites they are trying to prove past infringement, and they must be able to prove the length of time the infringers were infringing.

Logistically impossible for 40,000 litigants.

Acacia will never be able to win in most European Countries since they don't allow software or process patents. If they would claim it is a technical innovation they would fail since the computer and network are older innovations and this "new" innovation is completly based on those. Even if they would start processing against webmasters in Europe they would have much harder time trying to convince the courts since the legal system is much more protective of consumers in Europe.
I know that they won't be able to touch webmasters that live and host in Sweden.

So GO FUCK YOURSELF Acacia.

Exactly - Thats why anybody could just ignore them!

jDoG

bump ...

gone to read this

<h3>I will NOT report to Acacia!</h3>

Acacia did not invent motion pictures.
Acacia did not invent time compression.

How do they claim to have invented the combination of the two?
Anyone?

They're not claiming that

They're claiming royalties on any transmission of sound or video in real time or less then real time ?

You're getting closer

They claim "cable" companies must report to them ...
satelite transmission companies must report to them ...
telcos must report to them ...

they're claiming anyone which sends information other then text owes them money ...
?

ADDENDUM: text and still frame graphics
animated gifs - we are still not sure of

I would need to verify this with a patent attorney, but I believe that this is where Patent Law and Civil Law differ...

With Patent Law, they don't have to show harm done to be awarded damages, they just have to show when infringement started and put some kind of reasonable price tag for the retroactive infringement.



Fight the Patent!

FedEx is expensive isn't it? Would that take a HUGE chunk of what little was left after paying hosting, paying the models/photographers and paying affiliates?

If you believe that, then explain how E-Data is suing companies in Europe for their patent:

http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=109490



Fight the Patent!

not if the consumer pays for the shipping...







Fight the Patent!

You're right - I am confused.
I thought patents were clear and concise.
This company invented something - they should be rewarded for their innovations.

I see no innovation with Acacia.
I see legal mumble jumble with a bad "Enron" smell.
I just don't understand what they invented - to get a patent.

According to that they won a case regarding a specific machine. The rest of the mumbo jumbo you should probably take lightly since the last sentence states: "Distributed by PR Newswire on behalf of E-Data Corporation"

As I said you can't patent software or processes in most of Europe. Forgive me, you can seek the patents and they might slip through, but they won't be valid.

Most of their European patents is NOT valid according to
a Patent lawer I spoke with today in sweden.
Another Patent guy said many of their patents they say they
have in Europe are not real patents (?) yet.

Once again - we do not have the same fucked up (sorry)
patent laws as you do in US.
I think Acacia, as mentioned in this thread, is sending out sales letters. BUT they didn't know that adult webmasters knows
how to trick people to get some money and we are not fooled.
People with alot of money settles, and they are US biz, because
the want that insurance just if....

Despite the things I said at the top I'm still talking to
other european patent lawyers just in case......

And also mentioned at the top - should they fly to europe,
go to court to sue me for 1500 per year ? LOL

What I'm worried about is the Webbhosting thing...
If they win in US maybe they can have my US host
to shut me down. Better get a european host as backup.

Sending DVDs is not feasible, and it has nothing to do with the expense of shipping.

It is the fact that you are sending pornographic material across state lines.

I was thinking of the DVD site idea myself.. If it's illegal to send porno across state lines then how does Girls Gone Wild get away with it?

and aren't we still sending it over state lines via the internet?

remember this:

They have to beat YOU in court by way of a LAWSUIT to shut down YOUR webhosting and/or DNS.

And I don't think they are capable of doing this to 200,000 adult webmasters internationally. Not with a staff of 20 some employees, and not even with millions (of stockholder funds) in the bank to piss away. Their investors will put them out on the sidewalk.

A (few) people that messed up and got default judgments because they did not respond to a LAWSUIT got shut down (temporarily.)

but, last time I looked, even David Lace is back up and doing business, and I don't believe he signed up with them.

http://www.davidlace.com/main.html

The impact acacia will have on adult webmasters who fight them in court will be the same impact a mosquito has on an elephant---even for webmasters who handle their cases in pro per. Sure you may lose by handling your case in pro per---but after acacia deals with the first 50 of these it's all over for acacia and their stock will be less than ten cents a share. Believe it.

KEY: IF you get served a summons and complaint, respond to it. Do not acknowledge their sales letters. They are not legal notifications of anything, and from a law standpoint mean nothing, (unless you acknowledge receipt in some public forum like this that you've received them.)

pornography is not obscenity, which is what you should not produce or sell in the USA. Obscenity although murky, has a legal definition.

hehehe... give it time, the US has put pressure on EU to accept software patents, and a huge movement is underway to not allow it (i'm on a listserv, and boy, are you Europeans hot over this one.. and you should be... we here in US are already stuck with software patents).


Fight the Patent!

What are you talking about? You're on the letter they send that says that Trade News Corporation (owners of CE Cash and Cybererotica) have settled!!!

(edit: this is based on a letter that a friend of mine recieved)

something I wonder, and I think some people touched on this in the past, is freedom of speech issues.

For example, what if someone patented the process of taking an ink filled pen and writing on paper, or the process of using print to publish a newspaper.

That may sound a bit silly but its similar. Video streaming has been around several years and is a widely used communication technology used on a big percentage of the sites on the net.

Imagine if a company wanted a percentage of money for every paper printed or book printed.

Bring in the ACLU

yeah but to redneck christianjudges porn has a definition too. the bible belt has its own dictionary hahah

porn

n : illegal activities designed to stimulate sexual desire [syn: pornography, porno]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=porn

Highly Unlikely after he dishes 30 for the paysite and then another 20$ for fedex....besides who pays for the dvd?

this is very flawed approach, as if porn surfers want the shit delivered to their house

It's a good thing I sell adult entertainment and not pornography.

This is a good point and one that has been mentioned before.

It does not appear that Acacia is enforcing this patent in a "content neutral" way.

What if they said that no one who is Republican can ever use video on the internet again? How long would their patent be allowed to stand?

What if they said that any political website supporting Israel had to pay five times as much as those supporting Palestine. How long would their patent be allowed to stand?

What if they said that Catholic churches who want to use video have to pay $10k a month. How long would the patent stand?

There are free speech issues about this patent and the way this patent is being enforced.

Exactly what I was thinking after all of the announcements yesterday.

Exactly Fletch. People use that word so easily now days...I have been telling people for the 22 years I've been watching adult movies that it is not "porn." That "porn" was illegal.

But the way people view things has changed...and the way people in this business is a far cry than the way they had to do it in the 70's and 80's...always had to have some artistic merit to it or you were looking for a quick obscenity charge.

Now days people produce 30 minute videos of nothing but people face fucking a chick until she throws up...no artistic merit that the "community" will find there.

Better come up with some cheesy acting you people...LOL