(ScoreCash)

[fiveyes]

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030922/225409_1.html

Background to signing, in July Acacia got default judgements against this company and others:
http://siliconvalley.internet.com/ne...nt.php/2237591

Friday, they closed the sites down using the injunction:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030919/195471_1.html

Today they signed and are back on-line at:
http://www.go-ent.com/
http://www.scorescash.com/

Remember- support <A HREF="http://www.impai.org" target="_blank">IMPA</A> to protect our use of on-line media!

[directfiesta]

Another one bites the dust....

Doesn't smell good.

[rooster]

pathetic

[JamesK]

fucking idiots

[LeeNoga]

My response:

http://www.fightthispatent.com

[fiveyes]

Minor error, their program is named "Scores Cash", I incorrectly left out a 's' in the title. But the url I gave for it in my posting is correct.

Their affected sites are listed at http://www.scorescash.com/catalog.jsp.

[homegrownmof]

I see a lot of "Good Lucks!", and "Hey we wish you the best!"

But not a lot of $$$$$. Which is what it takes to fight this.

The people you made rich in the early days of this biz are not going to help you. Most have settled.

Hope you don't decide to do something besides "well-wishing" after it is too late.

Pretty soon all the "OWNED" threads will be a bout you getting owned by Acacia.

[Far-L]

Told you so...

There, got that off my chest...

Doesn't make me any happier to say it though...

[Kimmykim]

Interesting.

[xdcdave]

has anyone won an lawsuit with Acacia yet? It seems like they're just mowing down anyone in their way.. sad sad thing

Does this also apply to video files that are zipped up and available for download through a website? Or just .wmv .avi and other streaming formats?

Also, what about formats like Real? Don't they own the patent to their own format?

[Diceman]

"Acacia successfully enforced the injunction against Go Entertainment's web hosting company"

Who's their host?

[Snake Doctor]

Originally posted by fiveyes
Minor error, their program is named "Scores Cash", I incorrectly left out a 's' in the title. But the url I gave for it in my posting is correct.

Their affected sites are listed at http://www.scorescash.com/catalog.jsp.

Yeah it would be great if a mod could change the title of the thread.......David is probably getting a bunch of dirty letters right now.

[beemk]

dont feed the bears

[amph]

Originally posted by beemk
dont feed the bears

[fiveyes]

Originally posted by xdcdave


has anyone won an lawsuit with Acacia yet? It seems like they're just mowing down anyone in their way.. sad sad thing

No one has won yet, but the only losses have been default injunctions that have been obtained because there was no response by the defendents.

Patent litigation is a long and drawn out affair. Just the discovery phase alone can drag out for over a year. The battle with Acacia could well last for more than a decade, and that isn't counting any appeals.

Does this also apply to video files that are zipped up and available for download through a website? Or just .wmv .avi and other streaming formats?

Zipping video files together, though it does add another step to the process, would not take you outside of their interpretation of the claims of their patent(s).

Also, what about formats like Real? Don't they own the patent to their own format?

The actual format, media-type or codec used is immaterial to their patent claims. MPEG is a patented format as well, for that matter.

If it's been digitized, compressed, stored within a library with a unique identifier, made available for selection and downloaded to a specified remote location, then it falls within the process that the elements this invention supposedly covers.

[Far-L]

There are a number of companies that going to court with Acacia on the DMT patents, but unfortunately this is just the beginning and no decisions have been reached. Acacia has been to court on other unrelated patent claims and they lost on a Summary Judgement on their V-chip patent claims.

Acacia is getting companies to settle with threats of lawsuits. It is also offering sweetheart deals to the companies that do settle. I have even heard that some of the "big players" were offered deals that would give them a percentage of the licensing revenue from the subsequent smaller companies that settle.

The most common reasons I have seen so far that companies don't want to go to court with Acacia are the high cost of litigation and fear of the Discovery Process. Others settled because it was too late to do anything else because they did not deal with it appropriately from their initial notice.

Acacia is claiming that they do own the patent on all the video methods that you described.

[rooster]

I think maybe a boycott is in order against a few companies (not scorescash). Those that are taking sweetheart deals and making things harder for everyone else can

Certain companies should have just drawn things out. Acacia is losing money, their business plan is seriously flawed, its only a matter of time before investors get real ansy. Acacia will hang itself when given enough rope. The money will run out. A legal fight can only be fought on so many fronts when theres hardly any money coming in.

Why give credibilty to them by signing. Certain companies are just bottom feeding and dont care who they fuck.

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by Wildcard
fucking idiots

I talked to the General Counsel for New Frontiers who recently settled with Acacia, and his answer was straightforward.

It was cheaper to settle than it was to fight. They have a provision in their contract that states if the patent is invalidated, that they get their money back.

For companies that settle, they are doing what is best in the economic sense for themselves, but lessens the overall effectiveness of the fight.

Sadly, it costs them $0 to sit on the sidelines and watch companies that are fighting against the patent. In the end, I believe the patent will be invalidated. I have been finding some good prior art sources that should help the defendants.

The efforts of the defendants to invalidate the patent will truly help all websites, but the cost of such efforts are only covered by the defendants.. it's exactly like PBS... some people pay to support the operations, others watch the programs and don't contribute.

Have patient and pity for those companies that do settle, and share strength and support for those that fight. Reinforcement efforts will be coming soon.

Fight The Patent!

[Mr.Fiction]

Too many Americans have become weak.

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by xdcdave



Does this also apply to video files that are zipped up and available for download through a website? Or just .wmv .avi and other streaming formats?

Acacia has a content producers license that includes the claim over archiving (zip) of video files for FTP transfer to a webmaster.

Their claims aren't over a specific type of streaming format, which could have their own patents.

Their patent is very broad and generic that allows them to use whatever 3rd party technology that fits their process.

Learn more about Acacia and the other companies that have patent claims to video downloads at http://www.FightThePatent.com

These are good questions to post, but more answers are given at my website.

Fight The Patent!

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by Mr.Fiction
Too many Americans have become weak.

I hope that you don't think Europe is exempt from all of this???

Note the INTERNATIONAL patents they have as well:
http://www.acaciatechnologies.com/patents.htm

So WHEN Acacia is ready to start sending "information packets" to companies in Europe, and you read the news that EUROPEAN companies are settling with Acacia, i would hope to see you be the first person to post

"Too many Europeans have become weak" as a response to the news.



Fight The Patent!

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by beemk
dont feed the bears

Acacia = bears ?

[BigFish]

If it's going to take more than a couple of years to fight acacia, then what's the purpose of homegrown fighting it? Doesn't the DMT patent expire in 2011 anyways?

[masta flash]

Does anyone know the ip's of the people at Acacia? I would like to block them from site.

Also, would it be possible to get some sort of court order making it illegal for them to visit my site?

I hardly make any money and I got 2 kids to feed. I dont' want them coming after me.

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by BigFish
If it's going to take more than a couple of years to fight acacia, then what's the purpose of homegrown fighting it? Doesn't the DMT patent expire in 2011 anyways?

It may not take a couple of years....depends on the quality of the prior art evidence.

I chatted with eBay today, they lost their patent dispute against MercExchange. I found some prior art that might be helpful, but it's too late for the particular case they are appealing.

Given the quality of leads that I have been finding and what the defendant's attorneys are finding, the case may be shorter than "a couple of years".

The purpose of fighting the patent is to go against the alternative.. PAYING them for the next 8 years.

Well look at this: http://www.acaciatechnologies.com/te...t_adultent.htm

Adult Entertainment has their own special heading on their website for targets.

If Acacia had lots and lots of money in the bank, they should be litigating many more lawsuits than the less than 2 dozen. Who knows, maybe they will...and then when you get handed a licensing packet, you can make the decision to pay license fees until 2011 or fight the patent.

If you have been reading up at my website, you will notice that Acacia is not the only company with patents on audio/video downloads.


Fight the Patent!

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by masta flash
Does anyone know the ip's of the people at Acacia? I would like to block them from site.

try these ranges
66.114.254.96 - 66.114.254.111
(http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?...6-114-254-96-1)



208.251.110.128 - 208.251.110.143

(http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?...251-110-128-1)



Fight the Patent!


(if the url doesn't link right, copy the entire line, then paste into your web browser)

[BigFish]

Originally posted by masta flash
Does anyone know the ip's of the people at Acacia? I would like to block them from site.

Also, would it be possible to get some sort of court order making it illegal for them to visit my site?

I hardly make any money and I got 2 kids to feed. I dont' want them coming after me.

if you hardly make any money then i doubt any licensing free will affect you much. if you made a 100 dollars gross, i believe they're just asking for 2 percent of that, which is 2 bucks but i could be wrong.

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by BigFish


i believe they're just asking for 2 percent of that,......

They could also have a mininum floor like $1000 /year for Gross Revenue under $xxx amount, and anything over is 2% of GROSS REVENUE. Or that in year 3 of the deal, the rate increases to a higher rate. Or every full moon, an extra payment of $99 bux is due.

It can be whatever they want....you can be squeezed for just enough to not kill you..... wait, what kind of creatures in nature do that?



Fight The Patent!

[homegrownmof]

bump

[FightThisPatent]

awwwww... when the thread title was changed, the keyword 'Acacia' was left out..... without that keyword, many will just breeze by

[Worldnet]

Very intersting! I hate being lied too. I emailed scorescash this weekend when they went down. Got a reply this afternoon. The lying bastards told me it was the hurricane that shut them down, and that there servers needed new hardware, and was being fixed asap. I'm getting out of there program asap.

[swami]

I have been bad mouthing scorescash more than anyone here but I just want to say that they have come good with June july and augusts payment as they said they would and it seems like they are in it for the long haul.
Of course then again I haven't cashed the check yet

[homegrownmof]

Originally posted by FightThisPatent
awwwww... when the thread title was changed, the keyword 'Acacia' was left out..... without that keyword, many will just breeze by

Who changed the thread title????????

Why was ACACIA left out?

[berg.the.red]

Originally posted by masta flash
I hardly make any money and I got 2 kids to feed. I dont' want them coming after me.

your fucked now !! that probably just put you at the top of their list of easy marks.

i heard they did the DNS shutdown thing to David Lace through GoDaddy, now this. isn't that like; racketeering or something ? doesn't fighting their patent give everyone some kind of legal recourse against this kind of thing ?

[Snake Doctor]

Originally posted by homegrownmof



Who changed the thread title????????

Why was ACACIA left out?

Not only that but they still have the wrong damn sponsor's name in the title.

[fiveyes]

Originally posted by FightThisPatent
awwwww... when the thread title was changed, the keyword 'Acacia' was left out..... without that keyword, many will just breeze by

Very strange!

Doing 'View Source' on the thread page reveals the original, complete title of "Go Entertainment (ScoreCash) signs with Acacia" within a HTML comment. But everywhere else it's been shortened to "(Scorecash)". But, looking at my VBulletin source files, that commented line should read exactly the same as the given title, so I don't know what's up with this...

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by berg.the.red



i heard they did the DNS shutdown thing to David Lace through GoDaddy, now this. isn't that like; racketeering or something ? doesn't fighting their patent give everyone some kind of legal recourse against this kind of thing ?

David Lace didn't fight the patent infringement claims (as was reported).. he just never showed up in court... so Acacia won by a default action...

Part of that default action is to cease operations... so they somehow convinced the registrar to shut them down. Must have been a court order for GoDaddy to have done that....then as some of you read in another thread, other Lace domains were still in operations, so Acacia didn't get all of them. Continuing to operate his business in light of the default judgement is a big no-no.. i believe it turns from a civil issue to a possible criminal one.

It's all perfectly legal.....Lace should have either defended himself or settled with Acacia.. losing by default is not so good.


Fight the Patent!

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by FightThisPatent



It can be whatever they want....you can be squeezed for just enough to not kill you..... wait, what kind of creatures in nature do that?

[jeopardy theme playing]

What is............. a tapeworm?

[harvey]

first of all, I don't understand a lot of what's going on, so my apologies if I say some stupid things, but I'd like to know a couple of things

1- what does EXACTLY Acacia claims? How does it affects webmasters?
2- Does it affects only US and some European countries? what about the remaining european countries, Asia, South America or even Africa?
3- how can they be sueing the webmasters? as fas as I can see, they'd claim to hosting providers or ISP in the best of cases, not the final users, unless they're their own hosting providers. It's like if I buy a car, then 5 years later some freak comes claiming because my old Citroen uses some weird technology I don't even heard about. "I bought this crappy Citroen, moron, go sue a French!". Since I'm in adult biz I had to learn some stuff about legal procedures in US and I always get amazed, some laws are non-sense by definition
4- If they don't fuck around with the ISP and hosting providers, how the fuck can they know which technology is being used FOR SURE? Of course it's pretty obvious, but if I don't let them see my server, they cannot confirm it 100%. besides, are they claiming against (say) Microsoft, Netscape, AOL, etc.?

Well, if someone can clarify this to me, I'd appreciate it a lot

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by harvey

1- what does EXACTLY Acacia claims? How does it affects webmasters?

2- Does it affects only US and some European countries? what about the remaining european countries, Asia, South America or even Africa?

3- how can they be sueing the webmasters?

4- If they don't fuck around with the ISP and hosting providers, how the fuck can they know which technology is being used FOR SURE?

1) Acacia claims the following:
The process of storing compressed video in a libary for distribution over a distributed network (optionally at the request of the remote user)

This is translated into:
The process of streaming or downloading, audio/video files from a web server.

If you have ANY kind of audio/video from avi, wav, mp3, wmv, asf, rm, qt, flash, etc.... you are infringing on patent claims by companies iuke Acacia, SightSound, and USA Video.




2) Acacia has patents in INTERNATIONAL countries, they are not limited to just the United States! (http://www.acaciatechnologies.com/patents.htm)



3) Patent Law allows them to target ANYONE that infringes upon their patent claims. You would naturally think that they should be targeting companies who produce the technologies like Apple, Microsoft, and Real Networks, but their tactic is to make their money by licensing the patent to companies who aren't big enough to fight back.



4) Their patent is written broadly to not be specific to any kind of technology. Their patent didn't invent any tangible piece of code, it's a process patent that describes an IDEA. A person that "uses" their patented idea, pieces together current technologies.




If this is first time that you are learning about this very concerning issue, read more at my website at http://www.FightThePatent.com

It is my personal crusade to bring awareness and to help find prior art for the defendants in litigation to invalidate the patent claims.

Fight The Patent!

[Tara-scorescash]

Originally posted by Worldnet
Very intersting! I hate being lied too. I emailed scorescash this weekend when they went down. Got a reply this afternoon. The lying bastards told me it was the hurricane that shut them down, and that there servers needed new hardware, and was being fixed asap. I'm getting out of there program asap.

I am sorry you feel that you were lied to. But the truth is yes Acaica did shut us down on FRIDAY. In addition we did also have OTHER issues with our hosting company aside from Acacia, on Saturday and Sunday. So no you weren't lied to. I would also like to let everyone know that we are back up and running not going anywhere. The case is now in the courts.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. I look forward to hearing from you.

[Far-L]

Originally posted by Tara-scorescash


I am sorry you feel that you were lied to. But the truth is yes Acaica did shut us down on FRIDAY. In addition we did also have OTHER issues with our hosting company aside from Acacia, on Saturday and Sunday. So no you weren't lied to. I would also like to let everyone know that we are back up and running not going anywhere. The case is now in the courts.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. I look forward to hearing from you.

No offense, yes, the case is now in the courts but not for ScoreCash... your company settled, done deal.

"Owned" by Acacia. Game over.

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by Far-L


No offense, yes, the case is now in the courts but not for ScoreCash... your company settled, done deal.

"Owned" by Acacia. Game over.

I'm confuzzed, who is going back in court to defend themselves against acacia and who settled?



Fight The Patent!

[Far-L]

The point is that those who settle are not going to court with Acacia.

To the best of my understanding, Acacia's settlements specify that the new licensee will not subsequently help any efforts to overturn its patents.

[arkenon]

Who do those Acacia peeps think they are anyway?!?....honestly, i really dont know shit about their company but the idea that i'm getting from all the replies in this thread is that they are pushing their pantent bullshit into an industry that does'nt seem to want them. I checked the suggested link to see what they're about and it seems to me that they are racketeering, but in a legal bully type of way. Like I said though, I really don't know so I really prolly shouldn't even be responding here..........

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by arkenon
I checked the suggested link to see what they're about and it seems to me that they are racketeering, but in a legal bully type of way. Like I said though, I really don't know so I really prolly shouldn't even be responding here..........

I am getting the vibe that you are "pissed off" about this. So was I when I first read about Acacia and the 2 OTHER companies that have broad patent claims 5 weeks ago. I started FightThePatent.com immediately as a response to channel my "pissed off" feelings.

Since you read up on this thread and hopefully my website, you got INFORMED. After reading it, you got MAD.. .what's left is to get ACTIVE.

Major news from Fight The Patent coming next week about getting active in this fight.

Fight The Patent!

[harvey]

Originally posted by FightThisPatent



1) Acacia claims the following:
The process of storing compressed video in a libary for distribution over a distributed network (optionally at the request of the remote user)

This is translated into:
The process of streaming or downloading, audio/video files from a web server.

If you have ANY kind of audio/video from avi, wav, mp3, wmv, asf, rm, qt, flash, etc.... you are infringing on patent claims by companies iuke Acacia, SightSound, and USA Video.




2) Acacia has patents in INTERNATIONAL countries, they are not limited to just the United States! (http://www.acaciatechnologies.com/patents.htm)



3) Patent Law allows them to target ANYONE that infringes upon their patent claims. You would naturally think that they should be targeting companies who produce the technologies like Apple, Microsoft, and Real Networks, but their tactic is to make their money by licensing the patent to companies who aren't big enough to fight back.



4) Their patent is written broadly to not be specific to any kind of technology. Their patent didn't invent any tangible piece of code, it's a process patent that describes an IDEA. A person that "uses" their patented idea, pieces together current technologies.




If this is first time that you are learning about this very concerning issue, read more at my website at http://www.FightThePatent.com

It is my personal crusade to bring awareness and to help find prior art for the defendants in litigation to invalidate the patent claims.

Fight The Patent!

thanx for your answers

[doober]

Anyone know if they have patents in the UK?
It does mention the european patent office does this pertain to the all of europe?
Here http://www.acaciatechnologies.com/patents.htm it mentions a few european countries but i dont see the UK.

Can anyone confirm this?

[Mr.Fiction]

Fight The Patent!

[FightThisPatent]

Originally posted by doober
Anyone know if they have patents in the UK?
It does mention the european patent office does this pertain to the all of europe?
Here http://www.acaciatechnologies.com/patents.htm it mentions a few european countries but i dont see the UK.

Can anyone confirm this?

you must have missed this entry on the patents.htm page:

Great Britain EP 0 566 662 Issued November 3,1999


Fight the Patent!