Streaming / Offering Videos for Download?? Your BUSTED!!
 

I just got a letter and big colorful packet of information from this company called Acacia. Here's what it sais:



And it continues to offer me a royalty payment deal etc.

Anyway I know other people got this packet from them as well. Whats going on with this situation? Do they have a legal leg to stand on with this? I remember awhile back there was a guy that was going around claiming he had the patent for hyperlinks, then another guy has the telephony patent (basically a patent on electronic phone attendants.) neither of those held up very well when companies started fighting them.

Either way.. the video content I do still have is free or leased, so I would assume they couldn't extort payments multiple times on the same feed right?

Who else got this mailing?

As far as I know they can "extort payment" as many times as it's appliciable. There was a post regarding this a couple days back from Homegrown Video, probably wanna look that thread up.

You quote "extort payment" like you think what they are doing is acceptable....

As far as I know, streaming audio and video technologies have been on the net an used in full force (think realaudio) for at least 8 years. If Acacia wanted to enforce their patent, why didn't they do it a few years back? or 8 years back?

Why are we just finding out about it now?

Are they claming that they weren't aware until recently that the internet offered streaming and downloadable video & audio?

They wanted to wait till they got enuf big guys with alot of money

search the homegrown cash thread about this. They're fighting it along with a lot of other webmasters.

would those various means include if i put a movie on a cd and take it to a friend's house? we're all fucked, that's transmission of audio and video content by "various means". i hope they get fucked in the ass.

Firstly. Welcome to last year. How has anybody who offers video on their commercial websites not at least heard of Acacia by now? Honestly.

Secondly, do you even know the meaning of the word <i>extort</i>?

I fail to see how using that word would imply that it's acceptable.

But really, search for "Acacia" on the GFY Search and see what's going on. You'll find a lot of the information very helpful.

They hadn't aquired the companies holding the 11 year old patents until just recently and didn't get approval from their shareholders to go after people for violations until just recently.

And no, I don't support what they're doing, but I don't consider it extortion either.

Here they are:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=t&s=ACTG

12 Employees :(

it's been discussed all over the boards this past year. ynot article:

http://ynotmasters.com/news/ynews/is...202/page7.html

Send mass cease and desist patent infringement letters to MSNBC, CNN, NBA.com and all those sites with streaming technologies and refer them back to arcacia to get the Media into looking at how ridiculous this is and maybe they'll print something.

Homegrown Video, Video Secrets, Lightspeed, Matrix, Gamelink, Holio, and others have a whip ass firm and we are going to the mattresses to defend against this outrageousness.

Call for info on how to get up to speed with our defense group:

Farrell Timlake, Homegrown Video/Cash/Content, etc.: 206-391-6509