Cyberheat Inc. (TopBucks) Licenses with Acacia
 

See Acacia's press release here: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040112/125149_1.html

As you know, for the past year TopBucks/Cyberheat Inc. has been a major contributor to the fight against the Acacia lawsuit. After careful consideration of all the underlying factors, however, and evaluating the relative risks and costs of continuing to fight, vs. the costs of licensing and paying the corresponding royalties, we have decided that the best decision for the future of our business is to obtain a license from Acacia, and thereby protect ourselves from the potential consequences of coming out on the losing end of the lawsuit. In essence, the decision came down to this; if we continued the fight and lost, we could be subject to paying royalties based on gross subscription revenues dating back several years, with up to triple damages. The impact of paying such an enormous sum would be disastrous, and could potentially put TopBucks out of business, entirely.

We realize that this announcement will come as a tremendous disappointment to many in the industry, and it is with great reticence and regret that we came to this decision. Obviously, we did not simply ?roll over?; TopBucks contributed a significant amount of money to the fight against the lawsuit over the last year, and our decision is based on a risk assessment, and was also made in light of the growing number of other industry leaders who have made the decision to license, rather than participate in the ongoing litigation.

Every company and individual must come to their own decision about how to proceed, and we certainly respect and admire those that continue to fight. Our licensing with Acacia does not in any way validate their claims, obviously, and it is my personal hope that those continuing the fight prove triumphant in the end.

I?m sure that a lot of you have questions and concerns about this; I'm available at [email protected] to answer any questions you may have.

- Q.

This space reserved.

LAME

:(

:throwup

Hmm.

:sadcrying

Damn that sucks.

Good luck guys, thanks for the internext pass btw :thumbsup

Did you guys talk to a patent attorney (that understands high-tech patents) before doing this?

looks like they didn't have a choice.

That fuckin court case cant come soon enough, wtf

Where are you looking?

I love Topbucks anyway! :thumbsup

Isn't that exactly what it does?

True one of the real programs out there, very upsetting thou.

That's pretty much fucked up.
I didn't expect this from one of the biggest sponsors around.

It pumps their stock in most cases and causes other to sign without talking to an attorney.

big time

Pretty surprising considering how close the court case is now. I guess this thing really could go either way :(

This is the whole scam idea of ACACIA ..

:(

Another one bites the dust. When will it stop?

is there anyone left to license now?

oh no
please not also topbucks :(

look at it this way, TopBucks is a business...a business is formed to make money, they gave it their best shot to try and fight. After a year of review they found that there was a good chance that everything they have built could go to shit if they lost the lawsuit...so they signed the agreement....why is that sooo hard to understand. I would sign if in their position and everyone (that has any business sence) would too.

:( Bad times

Of course we did. We wouldn't make a move in such a complex situation, or in any curcumstance involving any manner of lawsuit, without first consulting with our attorney.

- Q.

thank you..."leaders" of this industry.

A patent attorney?

A business lawyer would say sure do it considering the small amount it costs, but most if not all "high tech" patent attornies who has seen 1000's of these in the past 5 years I highly doubt would tell you anything more then throw the papers in the trash.

yeah, all kidding aside they made the right choice
its easy for people with nothing to lose to bitch about it and get on some kinda high horse.
:2 cents:

Agree

If you can't see how we're all gonna lose in this then you don't fully understand what's going on.

We were part of the defense group that hired Fish and Richardson, who are of course patent law specialists, and we consulted with our own attorney, who has experiece in patent law as well. Our decision was primarily a business decision though, and was not based solely on the advice of counsel.

- Q.

great another sponsor to boycott..

No we understand...it's all about money and positioning yourself after the big fall...I just hope that you made the right decision.

wait til youre actually faced with a lawsuit then gimme your opinion

i can assure you they had counsel advise them to sign, which means there was SOME merit anyway to the claims brought against them.

i know a tad bit about the law, and companies just dont sign things like that unless theres a DAMN good reason

I guess I assumed correctly...you don't understand at all what is going on.

youre annoying.

i can probably tell you more about acacia and and the legal grounds for what theyve been doing in 5 minutes than youre capable of understanding in a week of study.

might be a good time to point out ive been in law school for close to three years now.

The list of those fighting Acacia at:
http://www.fightthepatent.com/v2/PornPartners.html

has been updated given the news of Top Bucks signing (Acacia put out a PR statement this morning as well).

Top Bucks was part of the Defense Group and did contribute financially to the Defense Group.

Also updated to the page, is Silvercash and Maxcash fighting the lawsuit, but not part of the defense group.

No confirmation/comment yet from Spike since west coast people are probably still sleeping... (except for you west coast early birds)



Fight the Time Zones!

its pretty pathetic out of a whole fucking industry, the only ones with the will to fight are homegrown, lightspeed, ars, etc


Within 4 years all the big programs will be controlled by large companies like hustler, realnetworks, etc


Im glad I hardly make any money from adult anymore. Its a dying industry for the little guy.

theyll sign eventually
trust me

I have seen so many of these patent based companies fold its not even funny.

Do you think if they would beleive in their patent they would allow people to settle for say $800 bucks?

Why not hold off, fight it and win millions?

but thats how these companies work they worry about 1 thing only "stock price"

At least hes honest he said "We were part of the defense group that hired Fish and Richardson, who are of course patent law specialists, and we consulted with our own attorney, who has experiece in patent law as well. Our decision was primarily a business decision though, and was not based solely on the advice of counsel."

Hmm, does for business sence have do anything with common senSe?

You must be real good to have to resort to porn in order to make a buck.

Since comprehension is a problem and you can't seem to follow a threaded board I'll break it down for you.

You said: "its easy for people with nothing to lose to bitch about it and get on some kinda high horse."

What you fail to see is decisions like this have a trickle down effect. Every day another sponser signs with Acacia I lose...we all do. But that's something you can't seem to figure out.

Why? I don't know maybe you're just shortsighted.

I don't know what you do in this biz and could honestly care less, but there are 1,000's out there that make their money by running small paysites with exclusive content that they shoot.

How do you expect them to fare after all the Acacia shit goes down...especially when the big boys "roll over" so easily.

Do you think someone like NaughtyJenn is going to get the same deal as Flynt? or Topbucks? No...she won't. They'll stick her with a deal that could very well break her while these "Industry Leaders" get a nice little sweetheart deal just so Acacia can roll out their names in press releases.

Every sponser when making a deal is working out contracts so that their affiliates are "protected." How are their affiliates protected? Only when they promote them or other sponsers who signed with Acacia.

So basically if Acacia proves their case in court and all these small webmasters who have but one site or even a couple cannot afford to pay out this fee imagine how difficult it's going to be to be a tgp submitter in this biz with everyone submitting the same old sponsers over and over...LOL

This does not bode well for our industry...but then again you're probably one of those fly by nighters who are in for a quick buck to pay for some beer and will quit to get a "real job."

For some of us this is our livelihood.

Aren't you being the miss negative fuckface today.

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see won't we?

Will you? 2% of your gross would damn well put you out of business anyhow.

If they do it will be just like the others not based on a high tech patent attorney telling them too but rather by their own choice or on advice by a business lawyer.

ok...what if i told you that you needed to give me 2% of everything you made AND if you did not give me the the 2% there is a 50/50 change that i could take all the money in your bank account, what would you say? Keep in mind that you have a couple million in your bank account and worked your ass off for 5 years to build it. You spend a year paying a shitload of cash to try and fight me, try to find all the loop holes, try to get a gang together to take care of me, but i dont go away. I say to you, give me 1% and i'll make all this stop, no more pain in the ass, no more chance im going to take all your money....would you do it?

If Topbucks had of chose to fight, as a 4-year+ affiliate of theirs I would have donated to any defense fund they might have started. I'm sure their 5,000+ other affiliates would have donated as well. Would they have won? I guess now we'll never know.