Acacia's lawsuit against Homegrownvideo.com
 

Well, Acacia is also naming us, Homegrownvideo.com in their lawsuit.

http://www.avn.com/articles/11795.html

That was a serious statement made by Spike here. We are going to spend a lot of money, and time on this. Because we were one of the first 39 companies contacted by Acacia, we are hoping we can be the first to to court, and WIN the lawsuit, setting the standard for every court to follow.

It's not my place to post any information on what we are doing, but I did want to let everyone know that we are fighting.

Has anyone else been named in this suit yet?

good job :thumbsup

itll cost a mint to fight those assholes but u guys rock for taking em on. someone has to put them in their place.

fuck those guys up!!!

:ak47: :BangBang: :ak47: :BangBang:

best of luck, looks like some of you guys are 'taking one for the team' so far..!

Good Luck and may the force be with you......

If I was the President of Acacia, I wouldn't be sleeping to well at night. It's only a matter of time before this patent of theirs gets overturned by the courts.

If they were smart they should have kept their mouths shut and just kept using scare tatics to get ppl to pay them.

Good stuff! And good luck. :thumbsup

Well, I'm hoping acacia wins, because I filed a patent on oxygen many years ago. I may not own all the air in the world, but everyone owes me for USING IT.


If acacia wins, I'm going to sue all of you for breathing. :321GFY

They sent me a package saying to buy their webmaster license but it didnt say anything about litigation. I guess that is coming next.

Good luck guys!

I had my package ages ago hopefully the summons is not in the post.

I wish you the best of luck. But patent law, particularly pertaining to internet technologies is going to be forged in the coming years. There are no guarantees that the courts will do the right thing. Look to the example of AOL obtaining the patent for all instant messaging. Even though IRC had the technology well before ICQ. So you cannot always count on the courts.

Anyway best of luck to you I hope you crush them like bugs.

:feels-hot Give em hell

IRC, unlike IM isnt in realtime. That might have made a difference although i havent seen any paperworkl to know how exactly they won.

mmmh....

as anybody heard from Microsoft... developer of Windows Media, Apple with .mov... etc...?

They are the only one that can say if they stole Acacia Technology....

Homegrownvideo... are you planning to bring them to court?

Acacia is also taking on Global Reach as one of the first named companies. This will be an interesting scuffle. GR is no stranger to patent fights.

irc is just as real time as IM. They are both based on relaying text from client to server then directed to the other client(s)

nail those fuckin creepy lawyers.

Yikes... Fuck them. Let me know what happens!!! I think I will call you guys later for more info!! :BangBang:

Yeah I would like to see them try to go after Microsoft, Apple, any Fortune 500... Then again... Microsoft has the money to just buy them rather then go through a court battle...

I just read the AVN online article describing what Acacia is doing. This company is the biggest and most disgusting leech I have seen to date.

Apparently, this company lost $37 million in 2002. Since these guys have no legitimate way to make money, they decide to persue this bullshit. That's not even the worst part, in most of their negotiations, Acacia is asking for around 2% of a company's GROSS income; whether that income is derived from streaming audio/video or not. How in the hell can Acacia reasonably ask any company to give up 2% of its gross income?

I wish best of luck to Homegrown and any other company who decides to fight these clowns. A company which can only generate revenue by taking it from other companies should not be in existence.

I thought IM's were peer to peer with no server in the middle?

Thanks for the support!

In my own personal opinion, I see it like this: Acacia targeted 'porn companies' first, because the general public has a negative opinion on pornography.

I think that they are targeting us (as pornographers) because they think that this way they can win easily, and stockpile money to fund further lawsuits against other big mainstream companies, like Microsoft, Real Networks, maybe even CNN, and any other major corporate company who uses/creates any form of streaming media.

anyone have a smart bomb?

haha 2% year right. Let's see them try to get 2% of ARS or 2% of TimeWarner or Microsoft. LOL :321GFY

They have sent me paperwork and thats about it
so far.. I have not contacted them naturally.

I heard Light Speed received Court Papers.

yeah... but to sue you...they'll have to prove that the technology is stolen.... The only way they can prove that is by winning a case against Microsoft, Apple.. etc...

THey cannot prove that if the other parties (Microsoft, Apple...) are not there to defend themselves...

(its like me saying that Invented the computer.. than suing computer users.... claiming to the court that I invented computers... While never inviting to court the "real" computer inventor... the only one that can prove that I didnt invented the technology!!)


or maybe im just missing something....

Good Luck in your fight, you are doing the right thing !:thumbsup

Good luck to you guys, we stand behind you 100%

Fight for your right and get them down!

OFFSHORE, OFFSHORE, OFFSHORE.

Everything you can keep in a distant land.

There are offshore jurisdistications for example where to file a lawsuit against a corp requires you deposit a $25,000 filing fee. Things like that help to keep the demons (lawyers) off your property. Hehehe

Good luck! I always like your team of homegrown. The best amateurvideo site to mpromote so far!

Keep up the good work, and keep us updated(when you have time)

Andre

Is there some sort of industry fund raising drive to get money together for the fight?

Yes we are working on that.

Our attorneys are setting up a non-profit organization to handle this.

More info to follow...

let me know when it's in place -I'll donate to it

Me too. I'll happily support fighting these wanna be extortionists.

.com domains don't reside offshore. They are still under ICANNs control at the end of the day... if I won a suit against someone that was offshore and they had a .com or .net domain, that's the first thing I'd move to take... especially if it was a good one.

I'd definitely be up for donating to this fund myself - you likely can get a lot of others as well. You'll need to have to state the use any excess money in the fund (if there is any), and I think releasing specific costs to any doners should be done as well.

Let us know... :)

Cheers,
Matt

I will also donate to it :)

well isn't the whole point of going offshore to avoid the suit ? They couldn't sue a domain name.. they'd have to sue a company. What if the company is somewhere, where this patent isn't valid (ie canada) ?

HOMEGROWNVIDEO :thumbsup


I hope some extremely bad things happen to the people who operate acacia. They are true snakes and scum.

in the words of Jay & Silent Bob


"FUCK THEM IN THEIR STUPID ASSES!"

The reason why the bigger companies like Microsoft, Apple & Real (to name a few) haven't done anything, is because they know these complaints made by Acacia; really have no legal standing.

One thing you should know is that Acacia makes money on simply buying patents on already existing technologies, for nothing more than profit. This is a perfect time for the government to crack down on companies that exist in this way.

"Software patents pose a significant danger to protocols. In some cases patents become included in protocols by accident - that is, without deliberate intentionality on the part of the protocol developer. In other cases, however, an unscrupulous company or organization may deliberately introduce patented components into a protocol, in an attempt to gain market advantage via ownership of the protocol."

"In order for the protocol to play this role, anyone who wishes to implement and use it must be able to do so freely, and without restrictions. The presence of patented components within the protocol places restrictions on its usage, and therefore serves only to undermine this purpose. Furthermore, the presence of the patent brings an enormously unfair market advantage to the patent holder. By exercising his patent rights, the patent holder can gain financial benefit from competing companies who wish to use the protocol, or can stifle competition altogether by denying the competing company the right to use the protocol at all. "

"Patents are applied to software, not to protocols. It is not possible to patent a protocol; in general only a process or an algorithm can be patented. However, a protocol may include a patented algorithm as an integral part of its specification. In this case, any software implementation of the protocol requires the use of patented software. That is, a patented algorithm is an inherent part of the protocol."

http://www.freeprotocols.org/

In a time when corporate integrity has been questioned on every level, you have to know that the right thing will happen. I say, once this thing gets put behind us, we should boycott any business with companies that have already bent over to the ludicrous claims made my Acacia and other such profiteers.

Huge thanks for all the support!

Right now, Homegrown and VS Media and a few other excellent companies have come together and retained the best patent firm in the country.

We have spent some serious cash on generating research on the prior art and we are ready to fight!!!

I know some companies have already been served and if you have received the package from them too then count on the service to follow. Don't think you are untouchable or that this is not for real because that can hurt you in the long run more than help.

If you want info about our efforts and wish to join us against this intrusion that would be devastating to the entire online industry, not just adult, then please call my cell 206-391-6509 (Farrell, aka Far-L)

Let us not forget VideoSecrets and their efforts in spearheading this. Support them for supporting you!

I'd disagree and say it's simply because at this stage it would mean supporting a porn company. A company like Microsoft simply wont do that another reason they went after porn first.

BTW - I'll happily donate too when set up. If all the people pushing programs donated just 50 bucks it'd be a lot of money. There's a shitload of peaople pushing porn out there now and it potentially affects them all.

We have been served as well. We will fight it to the end!!:BangBang:

I'll chip in too. Fuck these bastards.

homegrown - I own acaciasucks.com if you guys want it.

They went after porn first because there was less of a fear of social support.. and.. by going after the smaller companies, they stand a better chance of winning due to lack of funds by the smaller companies to fight it right.. This would mean multiple wins for Acacia, which is a definite plus for their side when they do go after the big boys..

If they went against the boys now, it would be with no 'win' history. They know they could lose because the biggies have the bucks to go on and on..

As far as Microsoft and support for porn.. They love the existence of porn right now because they can watch & see what happens with the courts, which will let them know what they need to do.. if anything. You can bet they're watching what's happenin..

If they were smart, they'd throw a few million bucks toward our fight to prevent it from even getting as far as them.