On the positive side if it means that all TGP's will be shut down that is a good thing, no more readily accessed free porn :2 cents:

your right, but what they are hoping for is default judgments against a few that they target with real lawsuits (not sales letters) and get injunctions to shut them down, and try to scare other webmasters into signing.

Its basically extortion, and thats why I think the extortion complaint angle needs to be looked at.

1) There are 3 entities on the table an 1 unknown:

a) IMPA - an association

b) Defense Fund / Defense Group - made up of 11+ defendants sharing/pooing financial resources

c) FTPF

d) TGP group


I have been very clear and open about my plans and execution path, but what has never been clear, is if someone donates to IMPA, where does the money go.

I have posted many times that money donated to IMPA doesn't go towards the Defendants defense. IMPA has a membership structure.

Why aren't people being told to join as members (http://www.impai.org/join.html) AND make donations (http://www.impai.org/fund.html)?

Is IMPA a non-profit? Doesn't seem to be, because on the donation page it says "Contributions or gifts to the IMPA are not tax deductible as charitable contributions."

Does the money that has been donated so far to IMPA go towards the defense fund?

Where does it really go?

I have had many conversations with Spike and Far-L over this issue about making it clear to people what is up with IMPA. So many people blindy say "donate to IMPA".. but they don't seem to know about the Membership structure, and MANY, MANY people think the money goes to actually fighting against Acacia.

I believe I know the issues from talking to Far-L and Spike, but would make sense if someone from IMPA step forwarded.



2) It is a ridiculous myth to think that just because someone pledged $100 to support FTPF, that they can't also DONATE or become a MEMBER of IMPA for another $100.

goBigTime, i know you support what I am doing in concept, but let's look at the reality.. do you really believe that webmasters only have $100 in their pocket? And that the $30K+ that I have pledged means i have stolen this from IMPA?

Maybe I have been doing a better job at telling the story about how I intend to make a difference, and that's why they supported it. A dollar pledged to support FTPF, is not a $1 stolen away from IMPA.. people make their own decisions.

And i have to constantly say this, its a PLEDGE... there is no hole in someone's pocket..... NO MONEY has been taken for FTPF.

Once the goal has been reached, those pledges become donations, and FTPF can start to fight in this Acacia issue... by teaming up with the DEFENDANTS.. by providing financial assistance for their attorney bills, for helping to bring forward EXPERT WITNESSES, who otherwise may not care to help P*RN companies....

People seem to forget that mainstream doesn't care too highly for the Adult Industry. Many IP firms won't take your case, despite having money. Many expert witnesses may otherwise not wish to come forward to take time out of their lives to help.

I am not on some lofty intellectual mission, there are short term problems and long term problems, and i have been very specific and clear in various threads on my intentions and solutions....and they overlap very nicely with IMPA.

I understand Choker's point about wanting to be sure that the money supports this TGP group's interests.... Form your own group, but fully understand the ramifications... if you do, I will help an provide what assistance i can in my current incarnation as just a one-man personal crusade with FightThePatent.com

I have already suggested that maybe the TGP/MGP guys should run under IMPA, but you can't run a subdivision of IMPA, it would have to be IMPA executing in your best interests, if you become a Member or Donate to them. You can't control the direction, just help to influence it as Members.

Running an organization is a FULL TIME effort..... is anyone doing this full time? I think I am the only one, besides the attorneys.

Everyone else runs their own businesses and are busy doing so.

JMM's frustration is he sees all the bills that the Defense Group has to pay for, and the rest of industry who has not settled are not helping to shoulder the costs that will inevitably SAVE them from Acacia when they INVALIDATE the patent.

I believe there are enough webmasters that can contribute just $100 pledge/donation to FTPF and STILL donate/invest maybe more than $100 to the DEFENSE FUND or IMPA.. depending on how they can explain themselves and how things work.

As much as I have been working with the IMPA guys, I will be the first one to say that IMPA has done a poor job in getting THEIR message out, and I hope that with this new found energy by the TGP guys, that they take this opportunity to take a LEADERSHIP position, or risk having a splintered group.

FTPF does not splinter anyones efforts unless the reality is that webmasters ONLY have $100 in their pocket.

If my post leaves you confused about the differences/relations with IMPA and Defense Fund, then it means I am confused too.



Fight the Patent!


(sorry for the length, i have been trying to make shorter posts, but had alot to say)

Yes.. I have. I have exchanged MANY emails with the Chairman of the Board to get them involved with these patent abuses.

The summary, they are busy with so many other issues, that they are NOT focused on patents.

They have a new attorney that is looking into patent area, but no committment yet.


Fight the Patent!

jesus christ choker, im into hosting, i dont run any adult sites, but i think im going to have to throw some dosh your way, that was really heartfelt

What is Lensmans stance on this, do we have his support?

I have read their notices many times, and they aren't forcing you to sign anything.

If they did make a threat, you could go into court and ask for a Declaratory Judgement ("DJ") because you can argue that you are under EMINENT jeopardy or some legal term like that, where you are the Plantiff, and they have to EXPLAIN EXACTLY to the judge why you are infringing.

The flipside, is that if the judge decides in their favor, then end up going to court.. so you had better have your prior art and your defense almost air tight.

No lawyer is going to be able to take the "final notice" and get a DJ court hearing.

Acacia has crafty attorneys.... they know the game.. their problem is that Berman has said too many things that may get them into trouble.

Yes, the amnesty date does sound ominous, but it's NOT threatening.


Fight the Patent!

dont fuX with choker! :glugglug

Damn! Let's all just start up freaking anti-acacia organizations and collect money. This is becoming more popular than the "hey guys I'm in trouble and need donations now or I'll lose my business" threads. Get in on the ground floor now, start your own donation website today! Ugh.

60% of the people responding in this thread act like they've never heard Acacia's name before, and 95% of the people in this thread certainly have never been to IMPA's site or Acacia's site or you WOULD know what attorneys have been hired and what their addresses are. Christ, I found that info at the beginning of the freaking year when all IMPA had was a white page with some text!

A.) If you do not sign the license agreement and tell Acacia to take you to court, they will sue you IN YOUR STATE.

B.) NO lawyer is going to accept a measly $100 per client to fly to that client's state and represent him in court. And no, there is NO such thing as a class-action DEFENSE suit, you CANNOT all get together and say "we're all being sued by this company so we ALL want to be represented at the same time by the same lawyer."
If Acacia sues the webmasters who do not sign, they will be separate suits and THEY MUST BE HANDLED SEPARATELY.

C.) Trying to group all of the TGP owners together and say "we only link to the content" is a joke. How many of those TGP owners host their own advertisements and/or their own seeded galleries? All Acacia has to do is find ONE within your group that does, and YOU ARE DONE. Your entire premise has just been ripped out from under you.

IMPA has been around and will still be around through all of this. If they WIN in court, they win for ALL of us.
Who can't understand this????

All IMPA has to do is get a judge to rule that there was prior art preceeding Acacia's patent, and their patent, all of their papers, all of their lawsuits... MEAN NOTHING.

And IMPA is ALREADY involved in the legal system with Acacia, whereas none of you have actually been sued yet!

What the industry NEEDS is for people to get behind IMPA and support them and the sponsors/companies that are involved with them. They HAVE the best patent attorneys in the country. They HAVE every piece of prior art that anyone has ever been able to dig up both on and off the boards. I went digging and found a pre-1989 expert and got a list of prior art from him - how many of you have even bothered to do that?? (Yes, I sent the info I found to IMPA, they had already found him 2 days before.)

If you can't even pay attention to what is going on with this 10-month threat long enough to know what the hell is going on, who the players are, and who their lawyers are, what the HELL makes you think that you'll suddenly be able to turn around and win in court??
Just because YOU are suddenly in the crosshairs with a packet sitting on your desk, you think it's time to start up a group or start donating money? There has BEEN a group around all of this time and you SHOULD have donated whatever you could long ago.

For those that prefer Cliff Notes:
This is insane.
You cannot file a class-action defense suit.
No lawyer will fly to your state to represent you for $100.
IMPA already exists.
and
IF IMPA WINS, WE ALL WIN.

SO SUPPORT IMPA!!!!!! www.impai.org

I tell you what's fragmented... all these #$&*# Acacia threads....

:Graucho

Signing off....


Fight the Patent!

Larry I don't have a beef with you. I'm calling you on your statements here and I've made my point. You are interested in the adult industry and obviously in patenting things related to the adult industry. FACT .. that's it. End of story.

I never said you "threatened" me with anything. I don't feel "threatened" by you. The Age Verification Script that was going to be realeased for everyone to use for free was scrapped because of your emails saying that you had a patent pending/in process that the script might be infringing upon.

You also told me in email that if I wanted to use your age verification script I'd have to be a paying client. On 9/15/2003 you sent to me:

"The script can be seen on its site: www.BirthDateVerifier.com. It has been copyrighted, and is in the process of being patented. We could create a java version very easily, and license it to you once you became a client of the firm. Only are clients are permitted to use the script because of the requirement that we give you legal advice in connection with use of the script and Warning Page. Let me know if you are interested in becoming a client of the firm."

Your statements speak for themselves. I'm sure you're a nice guy , but I think you might want to keep track of what you're telling people. I have nothing against you, no "beef" and I'm not "out to get you".

Wow Carrie... so Acacia is going to sue them in their state huh? Can you please name one Acacia case that has been filed yet in any other state then California?

I have nothing against IMPA. I practically know nothing about them. How many people do?

If I am going to open my wallet up, it is going to be for my interest, not someone elses. I do not want to give money to help fight issues like the "cybersex" patent issue. I could care less about that. What I care about is this letter I got, and the fact that I have until the end of November to reply. I run TGPs, not videos. All I care about is the fact that Acacia is coming after me simply because I link to sites with movies on them. Now with that said, the replies in this post is a pretty good indication that I am far from alone. If IMPA can't change and adopt to what is going on, then of course more groups like TGPers are going to form up and fight their respective battles together as a group. TGPers do not care about every issue IMPA supports. They care about themselves. If I give money to IMPA does it go to the defense fund of someone else? So we are waiting on our money to help someone win a court victory over Acacia? No sir, this does NOT help me go to sleep at night. What would put me to sleep is knowing that my money is funding a defense of MY SPECIFIC problem. If IMPA can ADOPT and accomadate the TGPers, then great. If not they can form their own group. You don't ask for money from all these webmasters on your terms. You accomadate their terms. And the TGPers pretty much stated in this post their concerns. This is probably the largest group of webmasters on the web. Gallery builders, etc, look at all the webmasters that do business with TGPs in one way or another.

Well said Choker. It may sound like any of us are self-centered, but I am self-centered on this letter and if other TGP sites have the same problems then maybe there might be an answer I am looking for. This is ridiculous as far as I am concerned. I want information and legal thoughts that supplies me my best interests to either get this to go away or confirm it is what it is.

Still waiting on it to load. Crashed my browser first try

it's about me pledging 10 mils to protect every Opranaught...
try again.

operative word --YET. as you mentioned IMPA has been involved in this for 10 months now. companies are settling and new groups are now getting their letters. now they're going after the small to medium size players. so what ever work IMPA has already done isn't slowing acacia down any. if IMPA is the way to go on this, then they need to come on here ( or someplace else ) and show just was HAS been done and IS being done to counter this. what kind of time line are they anticipating. i really doubt if anyone in this recent "letter round" has the kind of cash needed to fight it or possibly pay ( or want to pay ) acacias $1500 fee just for a lousy link. these folks probably don't have deep pockets to pay for lawyers to fight a patent infringement case. and it sounds like from the tone of a lot of these letters these folks don't even have the "patent infringing technology" on their sites ( ya wanna throw that line from your old sig out right about now ? :winkwink: ) --they're just linking to `em. this also sounds like it might take a chunk out of some sponsor profits if a BUNCH of people start having to pull sites down ...

well thats good to know that you tried. keep up the good fight!

Ah okay thanks for the link :Graucho

Choker, count me in on this. I have several small insignificant TGP's and can't afford to fight alone. It seems to me the crux of this matter is the Novermber 31 date. We need a strategy to deala with this looming date. If we can't come up with something effective before then I suspect that many will settle to avoid the lawsuits that are bound to ensue.

We can only work with existing groups IF they addess our need for a resolution before November 30.

NOVEMBER 30 WILL BE HERE BEFORE WE KNOW IT! LET'S GET THIS GOING NOW BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!

Let me know when you get a donation system up and running.

I'm with you man. I would much rather work with a existing group, but if they cannot use OUR money to address OUR issues, what's the use? Shit, all we really even need at this point is attorney's opinions. If one firm wants $25 a piece to make and mail off replies to this letter back to Acacia, anything is better than ignoring the letter. Imagine if Acacia got swamped with 500 letters from free site webmasters saying "NO, we are not violating your patent. We will not sign a license agreement." We need a attorney to address our specific situation and recomend and coordinate action. I do not want to challenge this patent. I want to challenge them saying I am violating it. Class action suit against Acacia for harrasment and extortion? Why not? If anything that would give us more breathing room and time to get better organized and see if any other lawsuits come thru. I'm not a attorney but I would say we should file a class action lawsuit for extortion. Put them on the defensive. If we lost it would not hurt any other pending lawsuits. It would just mean that their letter is not extortion.

good point Choker. :thumbsup one thing that could do is get them on the defense and possibly chip away one small chuck of their claim. `specially since they're trying to play "divide and conquer".

BTW --if it comes to it: count me in. i'll contribute what i can mang.

We better get this rolling because the deadline for accepting the royalty payments is the end of November 2003. I am willing to donate $100 dollars for this but we really need to get things rolling. I suggest that you select a lawyer and we start donating and have him begin right away. I just received my letter from Acacia yesterday.

Best wishes,
Dick Shoke

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Choker


I have nothing against IMPA. I practically know nothing about them. How many people do?

If I am going to open my wallet up, it is going to be for my interest, not someone elses. I do not want to give money to help fight issues like the "cybersex" patent issue. I could care less about that. What I care about is this letter I got, and the fact that I have until the end of November to reply. ...[QUOTE]

Dear Choker and others,

Pardon the heavy words,

I am a student of history, and have experienced issues with the law.

I have sent a lot of traffic to Choker under the sellmetraffic.com program.

I have been involved with GFY for 2 years with various nicknames.

Benjamin Franklin said:

?We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately?

Our system of law in the United States is based upon Common Law, which relies upon precedents.

Precedent \Prec"e*dent\, n.

4. (Law) A judicial decision which serves as a rule for
future determinations in similar or analogous cases; an
authority to be followed in courts of justice; forms of
proceeding to be followed in similar cases. --Wharton.

It is foolish, contrary to my earlier suggestions, to fraction and balkanize this issue.

Everyone using video, audio, or linking to said content on the Internet should band together to fight this.

So far, it appears Acacia is primarily attacking the Porn people as they believe us to be easy prey.

The coward dogs that have signed already have proven to be easy prey. To quote Franklin again:

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"

The traitorous fools who have signed have sacrificed their industry's well being for their own short term benefit. Their perceived Security by paying this thing I think is extortion, is a fake form of security that sacrifices the ESSENTIAL LIBERTY of A. Being on the Internet and B. Using Video and Audio and even GASP!!!! C. linking to Video and Audio.

Choker and others -- you MUST understand that this legal group of the "11" are the Main Line of Resistance against Acacia.

They have the "real" attorneys. They have the "real" money. They have the real legal status (read http://www.homegrownvideo.com/test/legal.zip).

Your interests may not align exactly with those of the 11, but they align as closely as England, France, and US interests aligned in World War II - a common enemy bent on hurting the industry, and crushing and destroying those who do not succumb to the threats.

Repeated Refrain - do not dilute efforts. Focus efforts.

Now, that said, there are several problems with just blindly giving money to the Defense group of 11.

1. Acacia is still free to go sue anyone they want, outside this 11. Giving money to them does not necessarily give you legal assistance.

2. The group of 11 predict it will take 2-3 Million dollars to beat Acacia - that's a lot of money. But, think about it, good attorneys cost $150-300/hour. Figure full time for a month, that's 160 hours at $225 = $36,000 per month for each person. Figure a team of paralegals, 2 attornies, and 60 hour work weeks, 2 year case, you're talking a lot of money.

Politics, in which unfortunately we as brothers are embroiled, calls for compromise.

I plaintively cry for all people to actively support the defense group as the primary bulkhead driving to defeat Acacia.

If nay WHEN! they do - everyone else can cheaply and efficiently rely upon that court decision, simply and quickly refuting Acacia's self apparently obscene claims.

It is still unclear to me exactly HOW folks can contribute to this defense and retain direct benfit.

But this isn't the most important thing!!!! You will get derivative benefit from their advancement. That is the primary benefit!

This country has a serious fucking problem w/ litigious trial attornies - they can sue anybody for anything.

Find a way to identify your own interests, and find a way to get your own interests intermingled with those of the 11 Defense.

Perhaps there is indeed a 3rd party "foundation" for or folks that link to content - but it exists only to collect money and send it to this legal defense group

BUT!!!

it works out a deal w/ the defense group and the attornies for joint defense.

Think of this as a war analogy:

ACACIA is evil King of England

Defense Group of 11 is US

We are France. (ewww this analogy is weak, sorry). We want to hurt ACACIA and so we will make an alliance with Defense Group of 11 and send money to help.

Contemplate America's Lend-Lease program of World War II.

Supporting the Afghanis against Russia.

Orchestrating political military goals through proxie governments...

I am long winded, if I had more time I'd have written a shorter letter.

Do not dilute and balkanize efforts.

Contribute to the most efficient and effective force against ACACIA which seems to be this group of 11. Find a way to make them exchange our support for their support (TREATY).

Continue on Choker, lead us into victory against Acacia, but do so in a logical, contributory manner, please.

Choker,
I think your wrong in saying that we should just fight the issue that free sites aren't wrong by linking to their affiliates sites that use streaming videos or audio. If we do win that case then the actual affiliates with videos will still have to close down if they can't win the whole patent lawsuit. Then there will be no videos for you to link too! I think that fighting the whole patent issue is better, that way we win in one shot!

just my two cents....
Dick Shoke

reasonableness I am on the same train of thought as you. Need to talk to homegrown tomorrow and see what is what. I do not see others contibuting to the 11's defense fund as freely as we would like. However the more I think about it, the more I think TGPers would gladly pony up $100 each to hit Acacia with a class action lawsuit for extortion and harassment. Could not IMPA's attorney's do this? Would this benifit the 11 and all the TGPs? I think so. If anything it would delay Acacia's other pending lawsuits. Not to mention the press that would result from 1000 plus webmasters suing Acacia. EXPOSURE is what we need. Everyone including mainstream sites need to be made aware of what is going on. They are next after all.

So who here would pay $100 to be part of a class action suit against Acacia? And would they be subject to OUR attorney's costs if we prevailed? I think so.

We SHOULD all fight the entire patent but we are not. And IMO it's not going to happen. People are greedy and only think of themselves. I am no exception. It's time we faced that reality and worked around it, not try to change it. People are not going to donate moeny to sit back and watch what happens to someone else. They want immediate action for thier money. They want to see bites taken out of Acacia, no matter how small they are, a bite still hurts.

Is anyone else on board the class action suit thing? I mean if we loose we still win as at least we show Acacia we will not give up without a fight. And they will have to rethink their strategy about coming after us.

Right On! I'm all for getting rid of the TGP's. For years you guys have been building galleries for TGPs, playing by their restrictive rules, and they show their appreciation by cutting you out completely and using nothing but sponsor hosted galleries! They no longer need you. You gallery posters got really screwed!

Advice: Traffic numbers don't mean jack! TGP traffic has always sucked, still sucks, and will always suck. Search engine traffic is like gold!

Think about it......the end of TGP's isn't a bad thing!

I spoke with JMM today and was very impressed with what he laid out. Before today I hadn't spoken/met him nor explored IMPAI very much other than cursory readings of his post.

Melding in what you've said, it is plausible to start a foundation or corporation to advance the interests of TGP owners and DIRECTLY negotiate with the Defense Group of 11 [D11] and offer to give them large sums of money in exchange for certain considerations.

I am not an attorney so I make the following musings related to my own contemplations.

If I owned a TGP I do not think I would have a case for extortion. However, under California law, there may be a case for something else, like unfair busines practices, etc. etc.. However, just because I did not have a case, is not a reason not to file a lawsuit. See Acacia for reference.

With regards to getting Attorney's fees back, this happens MUCH more rarely than people think. This needs to be thought of as a COST OF DOING BUSINESS just like national defense. So there's a small chance of the judge ordering Acacia to pay lawyer fees, but it's very low (just like Germany never repaid the Marshall plan costs).

CNN and Wall Street Journal and Mr. Johnny Apple Pie are not going to be sympathetic (I think) to the poor plight of 10,000 porn webmasters.

Nevertheless, I do think raising awareness is good.

With Acacia's war chest of $50 Million dollars I doubt our $100,000 or so can put a substantial delay on them - but the more the better.

It's also quite likely that we could chip away at a particular niche in their armor while D11 fights the real fight.

This thing needs to be done in a transparent fashion so noone thinks that it's being done to put money in your pocket, or mine, or whoevers. FTPF and IMPAI have done a pretty good job at that, but we need to follow up even more.

Choker - I'm following you on this. I'll apply resources in whatever direction you decide.

I propose a conference call among interested parties Sunday Afternoon. I can set this up and share the number with those who are privately requested and admitted.

I am liking the foundation idea more and more, with the express goal of helping US and aforethought intended on negotiating a deal with D11 so as to provide them money and represent our interests.

With $100,000 - which could grow to $200 or $500K - ($50 monthly dues from 1000 webmasters to fight evil Empire forces) we could hire a smart young dedicated attorney who wants to make a name for himself, direct him to launch lawsuits on a budget, and negotiate with D11.

Let us know what your plans are as they evolve, and we'll follow.

We should take this off the public air soon enough, as the Evil Empire will be reading our intentions at leisure, given the permanency of the internet.

I agree with the lawsuit of extortion by Acacia. I really do think that someone from IMPAI should speak up on this thread and talk about if they are willing to specifically use our money in this patent lawsuit with Acacia. I have no problem donating to IMPAI as long as my money goes to the Acacia lawsuit and not some other lawsuit that is affect me.

Undercover for now,
Dick Shoke

Choker hit me up, have 1-2 questions and want to donate $100
8218548

Sorry to only snag the above and comment on it Brandon... I'm sooo tired and just want to try to get this across better....


while SOME webmasters DO have the money to contribute... some are considerably more generous with it than others.

And what I'm afraid of is the whole "I gave at the office" sydrome with FTPF... if someone pledges $500 to you, they may very well feel satisfied that they have financially "pledged their support" to help invalidate Acacias patents.

They may not want to donate anything else to a live organization that is currently in the court system with Acacia because they may feel like they have already done their part. Even though it was a pledge and not an actual donation.

Here's a question....

If the defense group had their day in court tomorrow & Acacias patents were completely invalidated, what % of your pledges do you think would come through with the actual donation if you hit your $250,000 goal today.

Because I can guarantee you it wouldn't be 100%.

To me, this FTPF pledge drive is allowing people to FEEL like they have donated money towards THE CURRENT ISSUE without actually having to donate anything.


See?

And I completely understand where you are coming from regarding the IMPA confusion.

It needs to be mad more clear. And as ideal as it would be, I'm sure there are legal reasons that people just can't send a nice check to F&R with memo: "for homegrown and crew".

$1500 / 12 months = $125/mo

That's what Acacia wants bare minimum right?



So $25/mo $50/mo $100/mo for various levels of support against all sorts of industry problems and situations might make a little sense.


And I don't know about everyone else here... but I would like to see Choker on the board of whatever the organization is.

The guy constantly has good ideas, gets stuff done & hates the cheater/crooks.

I think Choker, Brandon, the IMPA guys... everyone should just have a nice sit down and get everything laid out on the table & get all the money under one (organizations) roof.

JMM or anyone else from IMPAI,
Does anyone know the current situation with the lawsuit IMPAI is in, along with the other companies, against Acacia? When is the actual courtdate, what has taken place, etc....? If IMPAI is fighting for invalidating the patents before November 30 (the date of the deadline for most webmaster to sign the royalty agreement form) I think alot of webmasters would support the cause because the decision in that case will be a win situation for everyone else if the patents are ruled invalid. I am eager to donate some funds to fight Acacia, but of course it needs to be before the November 30 deadline date.

Dick Shoke

hummm ... interestingly --from their own webmaster licensing agreement:

section 3.2 Gross Sales: gross sales shall mean the gross dollar amount charged by Licensed User to End User Customers for access to the Covered Websites.

TGP/List owners "charge" nothing to the end user for access to any web site. it's the sponsor program charging the end user ...

and as for the numbers break down mentioned above: at $50,001 gross revenue your license fee jumps to $4,050 ( section 3.3 Additional Royalty ).

Choker I am not sure that is so - wasn't there a case earlier this year or late last year where a couple in one of the southern states went to jail for running kp sites?

One of the sites they used to feed traffic into their shit was a more general type of site and a number of people, not involved with kp, were linking to it.

When the law came calling they also rounded up everyone else who linked to that general site.

One a slightly different note - when was the last time you saw a bus driving downtown with an advert on the side advertising some website or other - now if the website advertised on the side of the bus has video on the site then Acacia is saying that the bus company has to pay a royalty too.

They have no power to stop linking / change internet basics. They can say whatever they want - it will not work. Defence needs just show how internet works and have worked from the beginning.

bump

No I don't see. No where have I have said in FTPF postings that money to FTPF will go to fight against Acacia, I have clearly said it is to fight patent abuse.. there IS are reasons for saying it that way.. but of course, the first case to fight against just happens to be Acacia.

People are pledging to FTPF AND DONATING to IMPA. The counter below represents people who understand that patent abuse cases like Acacia don't end with Acacia. Maybe that's why the counter is so low, these are the people who have paid attention to the issues and understand the ramifications of Acacia and other potential patent holders.

So if Acacia were settled today, I feel pretty confident that a greater percentage will still donate when the time comes (i understand that a percentage won't come through irregardless if Acacia is still around or not).

People who pledge are saying, Go defend webmasters against Acacia if you get operational fast enough, and also look after other patent license issues that will come from inside and outside the industry.

Luke Ford reported on his website that Ron Levi has setup an Intellectual Properties company (ie. get patents and get webmasters to license them). Does that raise any eyebrows here? Ideaflood.com is a different company that has a business model of getting patents and ultimately to get webmasters to license them. Forgent.com is an austin-based patent portfolio company who is getting attention for their patent claims over JPEG. Acacia announced in 3Q call that they will represent patent holders to license their patent and split the bounty.

I am not anti-patent at all. If the idea of the patent didn't exist before the patent, it's a good one, and that inventor DESERVES to protect their idea. Bad patents are ones that people were using the idea already and someone, somehow got the patent for it. Patent Abuse is taking a "bad" patent and getting people to license it.

If you have a "good" patent that somehow affects all webmasters, then hey, more power to them for inventing something that was truly novel.

And lastly, for those that read my long posts, I have always been supportive of IMPA, I have been telling people to become MEMBERS and to also DONATE to IMPA and to INVEST in the Defense Fund. If you can spare an extra $100, then pledge to FTPF.

I have suggested that the TGP guys maybe channel their efforts under IMPA.. but I to understand Choker's point that he is focused on the issues that affect him..... and that's so true for all of us, we want actions to the issues that affect us first.

So if IMPA doesn't want to take on the TGP specific angle of fighting Acacia, then I understand the sentiment of wanting to form their own group.

My only comment to forming a new group is make sure you do your homework first in how you intend to fight... I would suggest consulting with www.FR.com IMPA does not have the exclusivity to using F&R attorneys and some posts might seem to imply. The difference is the F&R attorneys that are on the Defense Fund/Group's case are VERY knowledgeable, already know the issues, already collecting prior art, already built up a case.....so that's why the posts to go under IMPA have been suggested because it would save on attorney time to get whatever firm the TGP guys have been able to convince to accept an Adult Industry client.



Fight the Patent!

Has a Link List or TGP in Canada been given notice?