Bizarre Acacia Stories
 

I receive all kinds of news from various webmasters... I'll post some of the bizarre/interesting ones here.... could be rumors, hearsay, etc... but some check out to be true...

Fight the Urban Myths!

Check your emails.....Acacia is SPAMMING webmasters with the Final Notice letter... it is a PDF dated November 10th.

I received a copy of one from a webmaster....

Maybe they are now using webmaster email lists to send this spam....as the next "marketing" step after their mailings.


Fight the Spam!

I have one confirmed and 2 other pending accounts of an Acacia "telemarketer" cold-calling a webmaster to update their database.

They asked him his websites..and the ones they had listed were old ones, so he inadvertantly told him the new ones.


Fight the Calling!

Its only a matter of time now.:BangBang:

I didn't get an email yet....


...oh wait, that's because I don't use the Email I gave Matrix anymore

If alot of webmasters get the email spam...then it could not be just the Matrix database.. but could be any webmaster list that maybe someone who had settled could have provided.


Fight the Sharing!

If anyone is naive enough to think that the Matrix database is the only one Acacia has , they are nuts.

i just checked my email and have one from acacia. rat bastards...

Remember to report it to http://www.spamcop.net and http://caag.state.ca.us/spam/

Acacia is now claiming that if you have software that has audio in it, and people download it from a website, then they are infringing.

Gee..sound in software.. that has to have like a million prior art software out there.... going way back before 1990.

They are getting desperate to try every possible angle to intimidate companies into licensing.

Fight the Beeps!

They are in panic, thy look at the stock:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=ACTG&t=1d

DOWN, DOWN, DOWN

Yesterday around -9.5%
and right now -2.71%

they havn't dropped that much, look at the overall year stats
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=ACTG...=on&z=m&q=l&c=

They have had several drops in the past but came back up...however if the trend continues then they will be in trouble.. But it's likely they would pull some pr stunt , to try and get one last gain

That is right, but the stock raised, becouse Acacia told the stockholders that it would be like walking in the park, getting the adult webmasters to pay up. They was wrong and now the stockholders can see that this fight is going to cost a lot of money and they don't going to win in the court.

Do you mean that if you download a video game they will claim that it violates their patent?

What about playing video games that have audio online?

Do they claim they hold the rights to those things as well?

Maybe someone can call them and ask.

Yes

Yes

Yes


I have talked to a webmaster who was speaking with Acacia, and the issue of having audio/video in a software program that would be downloaded from a web server, was claimed by them.

As I have been posting, Acacia has broadly interpreted their patent to mean what they want it to me, not what it actually means...so they will try every intimidating angle to convince webmasters to license.

AUdio/video in software is clearly not covered by the patent language, and should Acacia decide to sue any company over this angle, they would knocked down so fast..... audio in computer programs goes WAY back before 1990.


Fight the Interpretations!

This is the kind of bullshit that the judge in the case should be made aware of.

Why should anyone believe anything Acacia says?

I think that the next person these people will try to hit up will be microsoft. Windows 3.1 had sounds in it.

Exactly.. they STILL think an affiliate is a person who owns atleast 50% of a company....in mainstream world that might be the case.

I had one webmaster who told me that they were on the phone with Acacia, and that a picture of the MS Media player on their website was bad, and they should take it down.

When the webmaster asked why, they said because it gives the appearance that video is offered.

WTF?!?!?!


Fight the Abbreviated Cursing!

Many software products had sound within them... but Acacia patents speaks to the process of digitizing, compressing, storing, downloading, and playing an audio/video file.

Different technologies are used, but not claimed by the patent.

So Microsoft's windows media server is only part of the process, and may not be directly infringing....but when a webmaster utilizes the server, combined with content, then there is direct infringement.

But M$ is not off the hook, their website: www.windowsmedia.com

has audio/video....uses Windows Media Server.. hmmmm.....sounds like infringement to me :Graucho


Fight the Clams!

This was just sent to me:

"About 2 weeks ago I got a call from Dunn and Bradstreet. At least that is who the caller claimed to be with. She asked my business address and a few other questions, but did NOT ask any domain names. She also left an 800 call back number, and her name of Ann Savage. About a week later I got a letter from Acacia in my name and with the company address. The funny thing is, that NOT a single domain name is under my name or any of the affiliate programs. The checks that we get are not even in my name. I called D&B and they said that it could have come from one of their call centers, but there is no way to tell for sure."



Fight the Calling!

If she left an 800 number, it should be easy enough to trace.

Never answer any questions like that. You are under no obligation to do so. Dunn and Bradstreet usually does a lot of debt collection work. If you get a call like this ask them ?is this an attempt to collect a debt? see what kind of response you get.

D&B does use outside sources to verify info..so they may have just been updating the database.

Since D&B also sells access to their database, Acacia could have cross referenced webmasters with their own internal database to utilize the D&B data.


Fight the Indexing!