Get a grip choker!
As I stated before, you are a good idea man.
This as most posting and reading here are well aware this issue has the possibility of effecting a significant percentage of site owners.

1. What I am questioning is your method of accounting.
2. What type entity do you propose to form?
3. What are the initial costs projected for start-up?
4. What administrative fees and or salaries do you project.
5. Are you proposing to obtain a single law firm or provide legal assistance grants on a case by case basis.

I applaud your effort and let's get it done attitude.

I again believe this is a legitimate question. Do you feel there is a possibility of there being a conflict of interest, due to your already having received one the infamous dreaded letter?

This is not me accusing you of any wrong doing, however suggesting you would not want the appearance of any impropriety.

Wouldn't a trust account set-up at a bank in the name of the entity be a more respected option than holding donations/funds in espassport or paypal?

... ( cliff notes version ) along with anybody else providing a link on the internet to any entity providing video content.

It was not dismissed. It was dismissed without prejudice. Acacia could have, if they wanted, refiled the same exact suit against Holio.

You guys are reading way too much into the Holio case when it shouldn't be the focus of anything.

You're WRONG FATPad.. you obviously haven't looked at their pending case in Los Angeles have you? Do your homework and get the real picture. Put two and two together. Acacia could have DROPPED the case against Holio.. why would they? Look at the Los Angeles court case where Holio has filed against Acacia. I'm pretty sure it's the L.A. courthouse.

You are not kidding avoiding anti-trust laws....I spoke with some knowledgable people already and they said this is what needs to be looked into....Looks like we are on the same page....More to come

choker take a look at this
http://www.mapnp.org/library/strt_or...m#anchor677527

you might find some information worth considering

Ok, we cannot start a organization with the only goal being to fight Aacia. This would probably violate anti-trust laws.

What we need and have needed for a long time is a industry trade association. There is already one formed. Now it's just a matter of brainstorming to figure out how to make it all come together.

How do people feel about belonging to a association with voting rights determined by how much you contribute? The association can choose to fund whatever causes it's members decide on.

Actually there is a case pending against ACACIA here in California. In the Santa Ana Court. HomeGrownVideo.com and several other organizations have banned together to battle these people. You can get more information on the case and joining up to mount a defense here http://www.impai.org/onlineindustry.html

In fact they are also suing ACACIA for harrasment, and several other travesties of justice. Though hitting them from multiple fronts would be a great idea and could cause them to spread their financial resources thinly in an attempt to defend themselves.

What is scary is that orgs like Larry Flint Productions who owns Vivid and VCA along with Hustler have signed the agreement with them. What makes this scary is that Larry Flint, would fight anyone at anytime, so why did he decide to just sign.

Anti-trust only applies in business. The only thing about setting up an organization to battle one thing is that once the war is over there is no longer a real use for the organization.

was cool until you just said that. That is to open for certain people to control everything with funds, while keeping the little guys squashed.

So basically the power of your voice depends on how much money you have? Not good. It will be owned by those with deep pockets.

Flynt settled because they did not feel like spending the money to defend themselves and they got offered a sweetheart deal. Nothing disturbing and scary about that at all.

That was their business decision.

Our decision is a business decision too. We don't think the patent is valid and we don't think Acacia should be able to take 150 to 200 million per year out of our industry with an invalid and non applicable patent.

We are always available to answer questions. Email me your phone number and we will call.

timlake AT homegrownvideo.com

No, not on how much money you have. But on how much money you contribute to the organization. Should the same guy who gives $100 have the same weight when voting on a issue as the guy who gave $10000? What I am proposing is a democratic solution. But not all votes can be equal. If we say set this in $100 increments. A guy who contributes $100 gets a vote of 1. A guy who contributes $1000 gets 10 votes. Remember the goal here is to get EVERYONE in this business on board. What incentive to get big contributions from big players would their be if we do not do this?

If anyone has a better idea please put it forward.

On the same token, if a big player IE Maxcash were to contribute only $100, then they would only have 1 vote. the same influence as joestgp who also paid $100.

Take into consideration this is just my idea on how to do this. I think pretty much everyone agrees that the association needs to run itself, vote on issues and funding. The only question is how.

Post a link to the information on the Holio case against Acacia.

I'm still in and I really think this is the best idea. Think of a Corp, the more shares you own, the more votes you control, that's all this idea is.

1 share = $100 = 1 vote.

I still like the idea and am behind you 100%

Choker,

Okay.... I lied that I would just stay on the side. Can I ask what your intentions are to deal with the letter many of us TGP owners got? I list very few vids, so it's nothing to me to just delete them and go on about my business. But, we've already got this crap letter in hand and one way or another we have to deal with it whether it is just shitcanning it in File 13... forking over money for absolutely no reason except to not have to deal with it... or pony up money as a group and let someone disprove this fictitious *link* theory. And that's what I think it is... a fictitious ploy by a desperate company that is throwing ethics out of the window. There is absolutely no way Acacia can make linking to a site that has audio/videos stick in any sense of the law when it comes to their so-called patents as indirectly the whole internet is liable in that case. The cases at IMPA are not related to this as far as I know.

If you are like me, my time doesn't permit me to get involved in anything more than my own business obligations. It happens to be that this Acacia thing is in those obligations that I will have to take care of.

I just want to say that Spike and I have had a chance to speak with Choker today. He brought up many good points to which we will address tomorrow. Be rest assured we will endeavor to answer all questions asap.

if the situation becomes unbareable for TGPs count me in!

Not being a lawyer, I can't give advice on legal issues. But I can tell you what I am going to do about the letter............

I am not going to reply to it. IMO it is nothing more than Acacia fishing to see who replies. It is in my best interests that the existing lawsuits be fought sucessfully. If I join a organization that decides to contribute LEGALLY to research that other members can use, then I am not directly funding someones defense, thus not in violation of anti-trust laws. At least this is what has been explained to me. We need a trade association in this business that can together look out for our best interests. As others have pointed out, there are more sharks in the water.

Sorry for being elussive, but until more is explained to me about possible anti-trust laws, I am hesitant to post on this.

choker, my ICQ is 52741957

-brandon

This is the fucked up part. We can't do this. This disproval could only be used in one case. At a cost of about $10000 I am told. This is what I have been told. This anti-trust shit seems to throw a lot of wrenches into the situation.

It's public record Mr. Fiction. Check the court dockets. If you're to lazy then wait until next week and watch GFY.

I don't need to prove myself over and over again.. it's time you did some work of your own Mr. Fiction instead of Monday night quarterbacking everyone else.

why dose this man have to fight every battle for adult? I'll agree I was a little let down to hear he signed up... but who better of a person to get to sign up than Larry Flynt, with his past in the court rooms? Hell Acrapica probally paid him to sign him up

:1orglaugh

LF has a long history of fighting so what not offer him such a sweet heart deal and have people wonder the same thing you are now.. Makes perfect sense to me.

I understand the thoughts. Hopefully some good information is to follow. I think everyone knows that posting on this board has it's downfalls as there is no telling who is watching it and might pre-empt a lawsuit just to prove a point. I've always run a clean site(it's clickable to the roaches) and to have someone attempt to run over me just fucking sucks. I guess some consider it as business as usual.

:thumbsup

If I may offer a suggestion:

Someone who has received a "final notice" hire an attorney to respond to Acacia to ask what are the specific infringements based upon this test case.

It may take 5-7 hours of legal counsel time to get the attorney up to speed, (referencing FTP's Acacia FAQ: http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showth...hreadid=190214) and the back and forth chatter between the attorney and Acacia.

Maybe start a mini-fund... someone who wishes to be the test case knowing that this may potentially "red flag" them with Acacia... have a small amount of money raised by the group to get some solid answers.

Based on the outcome of this inquiry, you will know better about what kind of defense it will take.

You may not need an IP attorney for this inquiry stage.. just be able to explain your business and some of Acacia's claims, look at the licensing agreements, etc... someone's corporate attorney should suffice.

I have a patent attorney that is volunteering his time to me, so I will consult with him on this issue, which combined with a corporate attorney, you should be able to get some answers.

Without any facts, everyone's in the dark about how to defend.


Fight the Patent!

Ps. on the anti-trust issue... you found out the same reasons why I always state i am fighting against patent abuse cases, not fighting specifically about Acacia.... ain't the law complicated?

well ... in the FWIW cat:

"on" the hyperlink: British Telecom "owns" hyperlinks - NOT and NOT.

as for "encouraging infringement": it at least doesn't work in copyrighted material matters ( i think this one has been posted already, but what the hell ) --Scientologists lose hyperlink case.

now on the "interesting" side of things ... why is it if i go to this page on acacia's web site and open the Hustler Signs PDF file it opens in adobe acrobat in a browser window ? which seems to be "encouraging infringement" of this patent held by Eolas technology. specifically:
... disable the plug-in architecture that so many Web users depend on for experiencing dynamically driven content via technologies like Adobe's Acrobat (for PDF files), Apple's QuickTime, Macromedia's Flash, RealNetworks' Real Player, and Sun's Java Virtual Machine.

appears acacia isn't that concerned with "encouraging infringment" on the patents of others. just their own ...

ahhahahahh... excellent point! By viewing the PDF from their website, Acacia is a contributory infringer to the Eolas patent....which M$ lost the court case and as you have been reading, besides having to pay like $531M in damages, they are removing ability to hahahahaha applications within the browser. (the easy workaround is to just make the external app launch, but there is a patent on this function as well!)

Conspiracy theorists ponder this: what if this was a way that m$ could now charge plugin companies like Macromedia and Real? That the next release of IE would have Windows Media hahahahahaed witin the browser, so as to not be hahahahahaed with the web page? What if M$ licensed Eolas patent, and convinced Eolas to not license the patent to other browsers?

Small diversion, now back to your regulary scheduled thread...


Fight the Patent!

I don't get the whole anti-trust thing. If webmasters band together to fight Acacia or other companies like them, is that more of a coalition? It is not the every webmaster, or even every adult webmaster joining to fight. Right now it is the adult webmaster community under fire, pretty soon the poor Star Wars Kid will get his Acacia package.

Instead of the Coalition of the Willing, the Coalition of the Ill'n

I think the antitrust issues are involved when you have a formalized group,ie trade association, that is brought together for 1 single purpose against a particular company and that this organization tells others not to do business with them, etc.

This is what Acacia was trying to claim against IMPA, but I think they are able to address that issue and deflect it.
If you also notice that IMPA also is involved in the "virtual sex" issue.. while the comments here have been that they don't want their money to IMPA to go to dealing with that, only to Acacia... can you now see the reason why there is a need to not just focus on Acacia?

i learned early on with the start of FightThePatent.com that i had to not focus on just 1 patent abuse case.


Fight the Patent!

Tomorrow is today now. No pressure but my icq is lit up like a firehouse on the fourth of July. help please :helpme

Choker - how can i contact you m8?

Choker,

I don't use ICQ, so don't worry about me pinging you. If you don't mind send me an e-mail. It might be worth your time to see what I send back. I don't see anywhere to send e-mail(not that I don't blame you).

[email protected]

Ahhh there's my nigga FarL....Where you been hiding man? What I should have said and thought about AFTER making the post was that I wasn't sure about WHY they settled so quickly. But as we all know LF has a habit of going to court over everything.

Our question to the ACACIA lawyer was this, "how do you quantify the value of your "Technology"? If someone was making 150,000.00 a month already and just added video 2 months ago how do you (ACACIA) validate your claim to a percentage of their money? How do you know how much of that money was earned due to video or some other reason?"

The response to that is yet pending.....

I did like the counter complaint New Destiny filed concerning the prejudicial use of the terms "Adult" in the original complaint filed by Acacia. It's so funny to think that the Mafia is KNOWN for the types of tactics that ACACIA is employing and yet the Mafia ends up in Prison for the same exact actions. The pay me or we'll harm your business. But I am sure you guys are fighting the good fight and I for one would like to know more about what is going on other than what I hear from ACACIA.

And when does the issue come out of discovery and into the trial portion? And how do I get on that Jury????? LOL

Ok well I dont have much money but ill def throw in 100$. How can i get ahold of you choker??

my ICQ : 303408863

email : voop2001 @ hotmail.com

isn't this the same guy that got busted for growing dope in his house?

Squirtit or Walters?

All the lawyers are loving this I bet.. Instant Clients for them..

Flynt isn't gonna pull out his guns for little fish.. which is all Acacia is..

It's much easier for him to put a little food in their bowl so they'll shut up and go away.. No biggie for him..

He's been in the bidness longer than any of us, so it need not be for us to judge his actions, or motives for them..

Acacia thought it would be a large feather in their cap to add Hustler to their list of those who played the game, but they're now seeing it made very little difference..

I doubt that Hustler paid much.. if anything other than giving permission to say they went with Acacia's side..