Acacia - Solved
 

Set up a "Costco" streaming video company. Sell memberships to other adult firms. The member based streaming company charges a buck for the streaming feed hosted at the conglomerate. Streaming video company makes $500 a year revenue, send acacia 3%.

The video is not streamed off your site. And your not linked directly to the stream. You simply link to your page at the "Costco" streaming company which is your streaming page. That company is, in return, responsible for the streaming video Acacia fees.

I'm sure one could build a streaming video company for less than 10K... and charge fees whereby revenue (and your opex) is so low it doesn't matter if they get 3%.

Except that they are sending packets to people who only *link* to streaming media.

Fuck 'em altogether. Why give in?

I'm pissed off right now and can name at least 5 different major companies that I would thoroughly enjoy telling them to fuck off. However, I'll attempt to restrain myself...

They don't own the patent on that. How is that enforceable?

I love the hot dogs at Costco.


You get a 1/4 lb dog, with a 20oz soda for $1.50. Plus fresh fixins, and free refills on the soda. Yummy.

Disclaimer: I know hot dogs are made from lips and hooves, but when you mix lips and hooves together they taste damn good with mustard/ketchup/onions on a long roll.

If you only have video plugins, the are coming after you. Simply linking to video makes you a target.

Dude.. linking to video is not patent'ed.. STREAMING IT IS. Linking is a claim made to bolster the position.. but has NOTHING to do in reality to the patent. They know this.. and they walk on thin ice by claiming this.

As i posted before:

Acacia's claims, they are asserting that they own the rights to two basic ideas:

1) Media (video, audio, images, text, etc.) stored in one location, encoded and transmitted digitally over some medium (telephone, cable TV, broadcast, etc.), and then decoded and reproduced at one or more other locations. This covers not just the transmission of online porn over the net, but also downloading and playing mp3 files, reading webpages, watching digital TV (whether over cable, satellite, or broadcast), sending faxes, using answering machines or services, baby monitors (if they buffer and encode video and/or audio digitally), pagers, etc.

2) A user at one location selecting media that is stored at a remote location for transmission to the user's location. If you've ever viewed a website (ooops, too late for you already) or logged onto a remote computer, you've used "technology" that Acacia claims is theirs and you are liable for royalty payments.

they can claim whatever they want.. the patent is for streaming the video.. nothing more..

Try telling them that.

Dude, nothing. This is what they are doing. I think the entire thing is utter bullshit, all of there claims.

But the facts are, that this is what they are claiming.

Why haven't we (industry) filed a class action law suit against them?


It would cost around $5K for the paperwork.. month to opt in, have them served, get them off our ass.

Don't you see it yourself??? You don't link directly to the stream, that is where it is all about. For now I shut up.

Threating legal action unless you take X action has been a crime for a long time.

May Acacia burn in Hell...

I really hope they go down in flames in the courts on this shit... it'll create a whole new level of "owned" pics...

That's not what it is about.. it's about the patent.. just read the damn thing..

They have a patent on X, they claim Y, sue you for money for Y say it's somehow tied to X, and you do nothing but say "it's crazy"? Find a way around it, or sue them. As much as you might think they are a huge firm, it's just a bunch of lawyers sitting in rented office space. They know they are put themselves in a risky position.

You can't sue someone in this context. It's frivolous and is quantified as extortion (exacerbated if your a little guy). Not only can they lose whatever $$ they have, they can lose their lic. to practice law and / or face jail time.

What is it, your afraid of a lawyer?

Smegma, I know what you're thinking. But that's different than what Acacia is *doing*.

They are serving papers on:
1. People who produce video content (providers)
2. People who display video content (webmasters)
3. People who link to video content (affiliates)

No matter what the patent says, no matter what common sense would say, this IS what they're doing. There are folks here at GFY who have no produced video, who do not have videos for download on their site, who have *only* linked to sites that have video (like an affiliate link to collegefuckfest, which has video clip samples on its site)... and they're still getting the Acacia packets.

Unless I am mistaken, this will not matter. From what I have read (please correct me if I am wrong on this one) even if you link to a site that offers Streaming Video, you violate their "claim."

I.E. you have a photo site that you use to promote sponsor XYZ123, and that sponsor has vidoes on their site - they say you would owe them money too.

Again, not an expert on this and please correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure this is what their claim is.

Flow

Okay please make this clear to me. When I link to a site wich has streaming video links on it I will have to pay?

THAT is creazy. What about Google and all the other search engines?

Doesn't this only apply to links directly to the stream?

I understand what is going on.. I understand it's not what is right or wrong.. we all know it's "wrong". Its about abuse of power. Abuse of the judicial system for fiduciary gain.

What I am saying is that an argument can strongly made that they are abusing the power of the judicial system. Call the DOJ and have them investigated. Demand that they be arrested.

This is extortion. Fine. Cool. Arrest them. It has been done before and several occasions. You don't think lawyers haven't gone to jail for abusing the judicial system? Lost a license? paid fines?

What they are doing is CRIMINAL. This isn't an FCC issue, an FTC issue, a court issue. It should be a criminal investigation. Start playing dirty.

Acacia knows that this is a risk. Why don't you?

bring the fuckers down in court.. or someone else get the patent on using electricity! that'll fuck em.

That is the claim.. has NOTHING to do with the patent. Again, this is about abuse of the judicial system to extort a fiduciary gain. IT'S AGAINST THE LAW.

If I link to a page that has a movie on it , i owe cash ??

That can't be right ..
I think its DIRECTLY to the media .
he said link to the costco company ..

such an Idea could work if set up properly

you should shoot spike at homegrownvideo.com an email

Yes, if you link to pages that have movies on them they want a piece of your gross.

Of course it's not right but it's their claim. You have the option to either agree and sign a license stating that or you have the option to prove them wrong in a court of law. They're obviously banking on the fact that most people won't or can't get an attorney involved so they'll win by default.

Support the IMPA (see sig) and make yourself a part of the solution.

Either buy Acacia ($31 million) or beat them in court.

Maybe someone at the show will go POSTAL.

:1orglaugh

Ehh, what if my gross income is NEGATIVE? Are they going to pay me? :Graucho

gross income can only be 0.01 or above.

It's an operating loss.. or the fact that you lose money.. regardless of what you lose, if you make a buck you own them three cents.

Creative solutions to the problem are important.. but try to keep them off the boards..

ACACIA reads the boards constantly and use these ideas to plug any holes they might have.

I would recommend anyone that wants to help should contact the IMPA and anyone that's currently in litigation with ACACIA.

:2 cents:

Good point KC.

But I will give them one just because. There are, in my best estimate based on past readings, about 50,000 adult webmasters.

Lets assume that everyone of them is violating their "claim" and lets further assume that it would cost them $1000 to bring each one to court, that would be $50 million, which is about $10 million more than they have.

:1orglaugh


Flow

Gross income can't be negative. If you have any income at all, then it's more than $0.

In any case, there is a minimum income/licensing level that they've identified according to this quote that I found while doing some research on the subject:

"Prepaid royalties for content providers will start at $1,500 for a company making less than $100,000, on up to $170,000 for companies making between $7 million and $10 million. Webmasters will be assessed a bit more, with royalties ranging from $1,500 for sales of $50,000 and below, and $200,000 for annual sales of $10 million. In cases where annual revenue exceeds $10 million, licensees are required to contact Acacia for special terms."

their linking claims are total BS... if you have no vids on you're site and simply link to a site that dose have them... Then there is not a dam thing these A holes can do... It would be like MicroSoft trying to sue you for linking to their site because they have a patent on windows or something... it's total BS..

the only problem is, you can sue anyone you want, for what ever reason you want... as long as you are willing to file the papers... if the person decides not to show in court to defend themselfs, then they win by defult. This is the only type of cases these morons have won sofar.

As soon as one person wins a suit against acacia, they can be sued for extortion. Care to see case law? contact me.

I'm still trying to figure out how they can be suing different people over the same content in different suits.

That don't work.

By taking a few steps down their logic path, they could justify serving notice to just about everyone who owns a website with outside links. Indirectly the links will always end up at a site with video.

i thoroughly enjoyed the part of the license where they demand the ability to audit your books at any time (with a short notice).

:glugglug

As soon as ACACIA's patents are invalidated by anyone in court, their patents are invalidated forever (assuming they do not win an appeal, etc...)

[edit] I'll e-mail. No sense allowing ACacia to collect potential strategy.