Acacia Who called them?
 

I have had many meetings with my attorney and the cost
of fighting them head on would put me out of business
and the cost of paying them would drasticly hurt me because
I would pay now and then again in January...

What I want to know is has anyone called them and worked
a deal??? I know this might not be a popular subject but
when you have a family to support what choice do you have.

Do you fight for what you believe in and loose everything you
have worked so hard for all these years... Or do you pay what
I feel is extrotion and stay in business???

This is the question myself and other webmasters I am sure
are faced with.

If you have called them what did they say and how did they
react?? Are they at least willing to work or is the fees cut in
stone??

yea, i called and worked a deal with them....

i will meet then in hell and thats where they can kiss my fucking balls from behind.


id never settle, and wont even waste the $250 to go talk to my attorney about the matter.

Have you been legally served or have you just received the standard letter?

kiss your balls from behind, hahaha

Just the standard letter....

big-trouble
I am probably spamming

Registered: Nov 2003
Location:
Posts: 3



Do you work for Acacia and are trying to persuade people to settle for a little bit of cash as you know full well you cant take everyone to court?

Don't worry, just stay tuned to this board to find out what's gonna happen. I honestly don't think that they have a chance, BUT if they do have a case, see what everyone else does on here and follow their lead :)

i told the cops that once too. if you think your gonna bend me over. go ahead and do it, while your back there pull my nuts between my legs and lick them, while you licking my ass.

The attack of the Acacia interns? :1orglaugh

Bet you walk with a permanent limp too eh Why? :1orglaugh

there are 2 kinds of "defendants"

1) "bunny rabbits"
they call, try to make a deal, polite, good hearted

2)" porcupines" - they don't call, make hard and expensive to deal with, make the litigator waste time and money on trivial persuits...

who do you think is on the list of being fucked FIRST?

I would personally wait till you got served, since they mass sent out the standard letter to people that aren't even covered by their patents.

But this is my PERSONAL opinion, and I would suggest you do what is in the best intersts of you and your business.
ZoiNk

Good advice...you may never be served.

creative

They said after 30th of November they are sueing a lot more people and they are also changing the rates? Were the going to put the rates up higher than 2% of gross? I think about what happens if they win and then start asking 4-6% of gross. What a nightmare.

I think they will lose in court but for a business I think looking at the worst case scenario is always best.

First off no I am not from Acacia. I do not believe they deserve
a penny from me or anyone elese. My attorney even says
that it is a nuisance letter but that if they decide to file
against me then it will be a very serious matter and very costly.

The very last thing I want to do is give them any money because
in my opinion and in the opinion of my attorney their patent is
not valid. Now like I said to fight them will put me out of business
but to pay them the outragious fee I can stay in business. If they
would only be asking for a few hundred bucks I think I would not
even let it be an issue but to make it the high price that they
have it an basicly destroy my family's Christmas this year is
just insane.

SO this brings me back to my question
has anyone called them and what do they say??

no we were in a room with a tape recorder going(oddly it was never used in court though) and my attornet was present. not too pleased, but present.

If you are really that inquisitive to hear what they have to say pick up the phone and call them. Everyone has to do their own risk management with this since every site is completely unique and what may apply to one does not necessarily apply to another.

No.... I have not contacted them.... nor do I plan to. But, I have taken the time to make changes that are not popular to visitors. It's only a big deal if you are served a lawsuit. What's the chances of that? Tick, tick, tick... I guess we will see after Nov. 30.

:glugglug

Leave it to serge to put things in their proper perspective :P

trust me, you can still make a shitload of money in this biz and not have videos :)

let the guys with the videos settle with acacia
There is no way they can charge those guys a licensing fee, and then charge you one to because you link to the guys that already paid the license fee. They may wish that they could do that, but it will never happen.

i haven't called them to try and strike a cheaper deal, but I might next week.

I agree with you that if it was 2 or 300 bucks I'd just pay it but since it's $1,500 now and $1,500 again in January it's just too much.

When they sent the letters to everyone without specific urls or details of how they're infringing I thought they were ridiculous, but now I realise it's genius, because they were doing that just to get everyone's name and get a letter to them. Now when Acacia goes through the web and finds sites that are actually infringing they'll look up the sites owner and see if they send him a letter already. If they did then they'll start legal proceedings.

Every legal proceeding they start is going to cost them money, in many cases it will cost them more money than what they are going to get back even if they do win, which most people believe they will not.

Let them waste their money by starting more and more lawsuits. As long as people stand up against them, then lawsuits will hurt Acacia, not help them.

If no one had settled at all, Acacia would be totally fucked by now. The fact that people are settling is what gives them any power at all.

Big trouble.. did you have to sign for that letter? No? Oops it must have been thrown away with the junk mail then. Bummer..

Have a nice Xmas.

I have to disagree with that somewhat. In my jurisdiction it costs roughly $100 to file a lawsuit. Since they have a staff of attorneys it is not like they are incurring more billable hours for each suit. In fact once they type up one lawsuit, I suspect they use that as boilerplate for similar defendants. Just change the names, address and URLs for each defendant. Not a lot of time or money there. Especially if your trolling for default judgments. Sue 1,000 affiliate webmasters for just linking from all around the country. Use the same boiler plate for each one they don?t have to be perfect. They are probably banking on the fact that out of those 1,000 linkers probably only 50 of them have enough funds to obtain transportation to California and money to stay there for the hearing.

They sure aren't going to make much off those other 950 webmasters if they can't afford trasportation and a stay in a hotel.

I didn't receive a certified letter, so i will do nothing. i got some chessy laminated packet, but alas, no certified letter.

jon

I am not so sure that is the idea with the linkers. I think the linker thing is way to send a message. The default judgments will allow them to get all of those linker?s sites shut off. Also plane tickets on short notice, transportation to and from the court house, food, a hotel, missed work can add up to be quite a bit for most part timers ( I suspect 80-90% of linkers are part-timers). Not to mention it isn?t just one hearing it is more than likely several hearings every year over the next 3-4 years. Often those hearings can be rescheduled at the last minute.

...and dudes ask why some people want to stay anonymous on the net.

Fuck 'em all. :glugglug

I don't care to speculate that far ahead.. I don't see that day coming. I'm not going to consider all the "what if" scenarios. I imagine your playing Devil's Advocate..

I wish there was a lawyer on this board.

If I'd just know the worst case scenario of not settling and fighting it, then I'd be more willing to tell them to fuck off.

What's the maximum amount of money they could win in a court case?

I mean making an authorized copy of a video tape can lead to a fine of $250,000. Whats the fine if you dont have a license from Acacia and it turns out the patents are valid?

I know of at least one lawyer on the board.

100% true. Acacia are not a rich company. They can't afford to start suing everyone, especially if those people are not worth enough money.

Wait until you are served, someone had a very good point about them sending out all the letters. That was more to frighten people into paying them something so they can continue to screw the rest of us.

Going to court costs money, show Acaci they are up against an industry that is prepared to stand together not fall apart at every bully who says "PAY ME". Join those who are fighting, you can register with IMPA for an affordable amount.

Plus if you are driving traffic or buying content, support the guys who are fighting for you and drop the ones who are helping to screw you. Cut off the money supply and Acacia will whither.

I believe this patent will be invalidated, it just depends when. But if Acacia win be prepared for many more. There are more Patentors waiting to come into this as well. Who will they approach first, the bunny rabbits or the porcupines.

Also if you sign up today for 2%, make sure that this is all you will ever be charged for anything. You sign up today for 2% and January they decide they need 5% what is to stop them?

It will be many years before the patent case in finished either way in court.

It's amazing how many here are thinking about giving to Acacia and not IMPA.

Well who knows the law? I dont.
What if Acacia were to take an "infringing" site to court and win and the judge were to award 100% of the sites gross, or even 10x that?

I dont know if that scenario is even possible or not, so I don't think it's wrong to look at all the options.

The people who are making statements are so careful about the words that they use that I dont know what to think.

Take the wait and see approach, if Acacia wins and coems after you and sues you, file banckruptcy and reopen under a new name, in Europe with an office address located out of europe, bank account in europe and a server in europe.

But they aren't going to win, they are fucking dreaming and know they will only make a few fast bucks off those who crumble and pay them till they are found out to jerk off fuckhead liars like they are.

Looking at things from Acacia's point of view - The ones likely to pay first are the ones who would find a court case either too expensive to fight, or simply impossible to attend -
So non Americans hosting in America are the likely first targets -

This would bring in the best results, and very quickly, are far as Acacia are concerned -

In copyright cases - they have to sue you in the state where you live / where your office is / where you are incorporated. Is it different in Patent cases?

I don't know American law in the slightest, but I should think in most cases, the state your server is in would make a ruling (if the owner of the materials is outside of the USA.

(Only a guess)