Slashdot Mirror
Acacia Steps Up Content-Transfer Patent Claims
MarkRH writes "Over at ExtremeTech we've got an in-depth story on the 20-odd suits being filed against the online porn industry by Acacia Research Corp., which has been previously covered on Slashdot. Now, several online porn companies are forming an association called IMPA (the 'Internet Media Protective Association'). We sat in on conference calls held by the industry, and interviewed Acacia executives. Bottom line: the porn industry is just the beginning."
Is there anything porn Can't do?
Fight the government, clean the tubes, sounds like a full day for me.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
... Ironic to me at least. The MPAA claims that video over the net has to be locked up in a chastity belt in order to survive. Yet, the porn industry has been able to thrive even in a highly saturated market.
It'd suck if this caused a damaging blow to the porn industry. It's probably the best proof out there that the internet *is* a place where people can make money with content without having to use DRM.
--contact the big guys yourself. If these guys get an court settlement test cases in their favor, it's going to cost a lot of the big guys serious folding money to fight the case themselves. whereas-if you can convince them to help you fight your relatively small case NOW, they can potentially save BIG BUCKS later. That's the best idea I can think of right now. These guys are fishing, but they will start taking people to court, and bet a nickle that they have a tame judge's area picked out where to file in. That's just a logic train, in war, the dude who picks the battle and terrain and goes first has the upper hand right off the bat. I haven't looked at any of the patents yet though, so no idea if their claims have any merit, but potentially this is bigger than the e-commerce patent fights if what they say is true. Just think of real player and quicktime and windows media player stuff, it would appear that all of those efforts are in violation potentially. I mean, transmitting digital content on wires? Say whut? That's a very, very broad avenue for "the internet". You might have difficulty though seeing as how you have a porn site, could be none of the big guys would want to be seen publically as "in favor of" your ....uhhh... artistic efforts on the net. In that case, seek contributions from like minded webmasters and hosts from this "industry" that will be similarly affected. There's thousands of them, a few bucks apiece donated might be prudent.
I imagine all these parties have employees who read slashdot, so they will see this thread. good luck.
In aggregate, these guys should have the money to defeat these 'patent' claims.
Geezz... A guy can't sit in the privacy in his own home and watch porn and plan terriorst attacks on third world nations in peace anymore. Next they'll copy protect all my DVDs, wire tap the internet, and install the same operating system on every PCs.
*pisssstt*"They are all ready doing that."
D'Oh!
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
They need to form alliances with sister organizations such as the International Petroleum Jelly Manufacturing Consortium and the Repetitive Stress Disorder Sufferer's Association.
Best Windows Freeware
there seems to be something simply wrong with an alliance in the porn industry.....the Christian right is gonna have a fit. might make for some entertaining news...
Of course, the Christian right has some sites that also use streaming video (see the link titled "Watch the Program" from CBN).
Now, an alliance between the porn industry and CBN - that would be impressive...
This company is looking to legitimize the patent by going after the shady companies which as we all know are destroying the immortal souls of kids everywhere. How can you not love them? They're fighting to keep your kids safe from nipples!
Now they'll have the parents and politicans and whatever on their side, and perhaps somehow make people believe that going along with this patent scheme is great for the moral future of a terrorist-free America... and then there would be no reason not to go after fortune 500 companies which don't much care for lawsuits but have enough money to license any patent, no matter how preposteriorous.
I thought the porn industry had already united under the Organization for Regulating Growth and Youth protection.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
now we get to side with the pR0n industry. I guess lame ass patents transcend most of the normal things that the average /.'er dislikes (M$, Sony, et al).
When is the USPTO going to realize that there is a significant problem with patents and how they are applied to technology and do a major overhaul of the entire system. Is there a group that is working on getting this pushed through?
It should've been Protecting Internet Media Porn. I wonder if there is still time to change it.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Only I wonder who will be getting the said "offer". After all, organized crime is increasingly involved with internet porn, especially pay sites.
So Acacia may just get a lil visit from da boys if they keep this up and sent a bill to the wrong people.
In this case, we can only hope that is what happens.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
During the adult industry's conference call, lawyers expressed hope that these media giants might provide "back channel" support, such as the results of previous "prior art" searches in an attempt to defeat the Acacia patents.
Hmm... provide back channel support support to the porn industry.
Also, you realize this means someone at Arcadia had the job of looking at porn sites to track down sites to sue? Get paid to surf porn. That's my dream job. Plus if they win, they get to audit the porn companies
I have blog like everyone else
Some bright young upstart that owns an American company filed a patent for "evacuation of liquid into a self cleaning porcelain container".
I had the misfortune to ask them where the bathroom was since I was desperate for a piss.
The lawsuit is going to take ages! I can't wait that long!
If I piss myself I'll have to pay for a licence to wash my trousers at the laundromat else I'll be in violation of the "clean garments by watching them spin round and round in a drum with hydrogen dioxide and sodium sterate" patent.
In soviet russia, I wouldn't have this problem I'm sure.
Do they piss on me there?
It seems to me that the fruit higher up should see how this is going to go. If they don't hang together they will assuredly all hang separately.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
This is getting more and more like a game of Illuminati every day!
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The Porn industry has lots of money to defend itself with.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
I can already imagine the following:
Hate me!
It's a multi BILLION dollar industry. Some of the porn companies have piles of cash that are too large to shake a stick at.
And they have lawyers.
Bye bye, Acacia.. heh. Smacked down like a little bitch in "Bob's Bondage Barn Volume 95"
Really says it all, doesn't it? That's the strategy of all of these patent claims: Comapnies that can handle the fees will settle because it is easier, and possibly cheaper. Companies that cannot will either simply bow out without firing a shot, or will be outspent by the now successfully revenue generating lawsuit machine. Plus, although a company settling and agreeing to play the patent fee doesn't set a legal precedent, it has to sway the courts somewheat if the lawers can argue that N multi-million dollar corporations are paying the fees.
I for one hope the adult companies fight this one and win. If they do, perhaps people will stop buying these absurd patents solely for the revenue lawsuits can generate.
(email addr is at acm, not mca)
We are Number One. All others are Number Two, or lower.
--The Sphinx
How many companies does this make that own all technology involved in the internet? At least 50. Why can't they sue each other, decide who holds the valid patents, and THEN sue websites.
Looks like we found the answer to today's Ask Slashdot:
Sometimes it appears like the U.S. is losing its edge in technology. Well, I was wondering what the Slashdot community at large thinks is wrong (or right) with the U.S. and technological innovation?"
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Pages 2 and 3 are also only one page long each, but if you consider them collectively, then it's a bit more substantial.
Thing is IF they were to win this battle (acacia not the porn industry) where would they drawn the line? So many differnt people acording to their claims are infringing on their patents Nasa for one, all major internet news sources stream content over the internet too so where do you stop? Do you sue the government for infringing on your patents? Take down the news Media? This is a pretty good example of why the government should do some major changes on how patents work so they don't get abused like this.
Anyways thats my two cents let the down-modding beginI'm surprised that Acacia actually seems to have the balls to go through with their threats to bring this to court. It would only take one ruling that the patent is overly broad and inapplicable to ruin their business plan forever.
Threatening to sue is a great way to make money, because there's very little expense and great potential for return involved. (It's like a meatspace equivalent to email spamming.)
But actually suing people is a much more risky business plan. You can never be sure that the men and women on the jury are going to act in the best interest of your bottom line.
>>Online porn providers represent an ideal target, executives at Acacia say
Why, because they're profitable?
Not that I agree with Arcadia's belief that it owns those patents, but they shouldn't be single-ing out a particular industry. They should be going after everyone, not just the adult firms.
It sounds like gold-digging to me. Perhaps they should wait until their patent claims are considered legally valid before they try to strong arm anyone.
Huh?
http://www.lectlaw.com/def/l056.htm
i um .nsf/articles/5731FF9F4372B6ED85256B43006EA07D?Ope nDocument
or better
http://www.zurichre-na.com/web/converium/conver
Esentially, if you knew about it in 91, you can't wait till now to go after royalties.
This might be one of those Vapor-Laws that money speaks louder than, however.
Everybody read those links, because these submarine patents are bullshit and the more noise the public makes about them, the less likely Acadia, Pan IP, and every other non-innovative lawyer on the planet are to think they can get aware with this bullshit.
"Old man yells at systemd"
In Soviet Russia, you fuck the patent owners.
I'm all for that.
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
If they lose this, then it's game over for Acacia and a victory for the human race.
It's that kind of logic that these twerps are hoping for...
.mpg of porn, it's a violation to transfer a .mpg of a religious gathering too.
The problem with it is that if a porn site loses the patent cases first, then when they go after AOL Time Warner and friends they can point to their porn case victories. Content doesn't mater in the patent. If it's a violation of the patent to transfer a
This sets up a horrible sitation for the big content owners. If they throw their weight into this case, they're gonna get labeled as supporting porn. If they stay out of this case, they're gonna get hit hard with patent claims of their own...
And then once the big guys go down, well, are their any forms of digital media on your site?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
OK, at least one poster has said that porn companies are barely holding their own, and more that one has said they're rolling in the dough. Anyone have any facts?
The only publicly traded company I can find that deals in pornography is Playboy Enterprises (NYSE:PLA). Revenues this year are expected to be $272 million, of which $34 million are profits after expenses. $34M makes nice walking around money but is not whopping loads of cash in the corporate world. And Playboy Enterprises is HUGE compared to an internet outfit with some women in front of webcams. Since those aren't publicly traded, no hard numbers are available. However, I think we can safely assume that the outfits selling cheap videos and internet subscriptions, while obviously profitable, are not quite so flush with funds as some people think.
This portfolio of patents make business patents like one click seem exact and concrete by comparison. Basically these guys talk about any digital video on demand which is an idea not an invention and certainly not something worthy of a patent, especially not as late as 1992. One interesting thing from a laymans POV is how they are very generic as to the specifics of implementation except in claim 23.
The distribution method as recited in claim 19, wherein the step of storing includes the step of storing the received information at the head end of a cable television reception system.
It seems to me this limits their patent to VOD systems for a cable company or in room service not distribution over a distributed network (or heck a network of any kind). I don't claim to be a patent expert but how can a patent this broad apply if all of the claims do not apply? I mean if individual claims can stand on their own then there are some broad quantum computer patents I need to file!
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Just two threads ago was a discussion of how America is losing it's technological edge. I think idiocy like this, and PanIP, and others of their ilk is going to kill our tech edge faster than anything else.
For a decade now we've heard free-market proselytes yap about how business will bring new innovations to the internet. But in practice what have we seen? The principal technologies in use are still those created largely academically and under research grants (some in partnership with very select members of the private sector, granted).
But principally what business has brought to the table is greed, squabbling and massively costly litigation, which far from encouraging innovation, increasingly inhibits it through fear and intimidation.
At the risk of overstating the case, I do think this is a further example of market forces alone being very far from the wholly benign influence they're so often touted as being.
Taking about going after the "low hanging fruit" is probably not the best choice of words for an article about porn sites. It took me a minute to realize what they really mean.
I wonder if it ever occured to those people that companies that are "making money" also may very well have the resources to fight off an attack? I suspect that the porn industry is the LAST group they want to mess with.
Any company that can enrich your war chest can create one of it's own.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This sounds like action on thier Media Services group, which is basicaly a bunch of patent mongoring whore lawers.
--
You sure got a purty mouth...
I'm serious.
The government has no interest in encouraging pornographic innovation. The first amendment may require that we tolerate pornography, but what does it say about us as a society when we actually *subsidize* the creation of pornography by handing out government monopolies for innovative pornographic techniques and content?
The framers were silent on this question, so I say it's time for action: Ban all pornovation! Eliminate all intellectual property protections for pornographic materials and watch what happens:
- The money will go away because you can't make a profit without ip monopolies
- when the money goes away production will cease
- when production drops, prices will rise intolerably and consumers will find pornography too expensive for their budgets
Simple economics proves that just like the software industry, intellectual property laws are the only thing keeping the hard-core porn industry afloat.
And BANG, just like that, overnight we'll eliminate the scourge of pornography. It's time to take action against pornovation!
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
might be here ?
This is a message from 1989 talking about a talk by FCC chairman re: cable vs telco and what things might be possible.
For consumers, the promised land would be video on demand" - no need to rent tapes or wait for the network to schedule a particular program. One-way broadband delivery coupled with 2-way narrowband signalling thus might be the way such systems would start off.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
It strikes me as odd, at least from a logical perspective, that Arcacia would try to "enforce" their patents by first going after online porn. It would make infinitely more sense if they went after the actual "infringers": namely, the companies producing streaming audio and video software. Going after Real, Apple (QT), M$ (WMP), and the like would have more legal validity, since webcasters purchase technology from these companies that they assume is legal... If any illegal goings on were happening, it stands to reason that the streaming media software providers would be the target.
Of course, there's a pretty shady reason why Acacia is going after porn first: A lot of people, particularly in the judicial system, have very little sympathy for pornographers. They will, at least subconciously, be much more receptive to the image of pornographers as "criminals", since they already consider them evil.
If they win their suits against the porn distributors, though, they have a legal precedent for hitting all kinds of companies, including the software providers (presumably where the money is), as well as anybody who delivers multimedia over the internet. So, the social conservatives who might hand down a token judgement against porn will be in the awkward position of setting a precedent to sue, say, a church that delivers sermons streaming over the Internet.
As with a lot of civil liberties issues, pornography is the frontier of freedom in this case. Many civil libertarians (myself included, since I'm also a feminist) probably wouldn't mind if porn suddenly disappeared. The problem is, if we legislate or judicate against pornography, then we set a very dangerous precedent for harrassing all kinds of expression (usually based on an arbitrary definition of morality, but in this case, purely economic reasons). Additionally, it's really none of my or the state's business what consenting adults do in front of a video camera. Anyway, even if you find pornography morally repugnant, it's still worth defending, when you consider what happens if we allow freedom of expression to erode at its very edge: the erosion spreads to radical political views, then alternative religious beliefs, and so on, eventually leaving a homogenous orthodoxy of ideas. Or, in this case, you simply have a parasite on the patent system getting in the way of people doing business, expressing themselves, and innovating.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
The stop telling jokes when they stop being funny.
- Others said the industry would not go down without a fight. "If we paid Acacia, it would be rolling over," said one adult webmistress in an interview, who asked not to be named. "It would be like saying 'Screw me,' even though that's (what) my business is about."
How can you beat a quote like that?I give up. Is he notorious because he's a pornographer, or because he supports the First Amendment.
Where's the funny part?
I think I remember reading about this company a couple of years ago. They had some 'revolutionary video transmission system' that turned out to be a hidden coax cable. Does anyone else remember this?
while (lawyers_get_rich && consumer_suffers ) {
AA.sues(Acacia, "copyright infringement technology distribution");
Acadia.sues(AA, "patented media type use" );
}
paintball
We've been doing video on the net since the 1970's - ARPAnet based audio/video transfer has been working ever since the days when SRI drove a van up and back on US 101 near Palo Alto doing packet radio based streaming multimedia.
The patents never cited that work, perhaps because doing so would have been inconvenient.
We all can thank Bruce "I'm for sale" Lehman of the US Patent and Trademark office under whose term the idea that a patent, no matter how bad or how uncreative, wouldn't be issued to a paying "customer" was a kind of institutional anathama.
I remember this too but can't place it. I'm gonna have to google now.
Larry Flynt has been doing this for years. I don't know the last count, but I know that he has gotten at least SEVERAL senators/congressmen to resign. He regularly offers bounties of tens of thousands of dollars for slimy information on slimy politicians. If I were to meet one famous person in my life, it'd be Larry Flynt. That guy's got some huge balls.
No wait. I thought I did. Then I realized, where the hell am I going to find a disgruntled Postal worker who lives near Acacia's home office?
We like to pretend that we don't like the porn industry, but the fact is that every swinging dick above the age of 15 has enjoyed pornography, and most continue to do so for the entirity of their lives. They just don't tell their wives.
There aren't many better non-violent ways to piss off all the men than to go after their porn.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Yes, I remember the story you're talking about. I'd swear I read about it here on slashdot, tho I don't recall if it was an article or a comment (probably the latter).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Most large US companies are already involved in porn. No, I'm not just talking about Disney purchasing small art house film makers. I'm talking about big finincail institutions such as GE Finance, GM and others having interests in porn. It does not bother them now.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Really?
Is there a lawyer in the house?
Can't they just file a motion to have the case dismissed?
Can't the lawyers for the defense just say something along the lines of "This patent suit is being filed only against small companies, because it's frivolous and they hope we'll settle out of court."
Shit like this should be illegal. It should be considered extortion and these guys should go to jail.
What can the porn guys sue these jerks for? There's gotta be something. Something that will allow them to put this company under, and convince a lawyer to take their case just so he could get x% of the winnings for an afternoon's work.
Life is too short to proofread.
What the hell? I was downloading porn from BBS's back in 1982. Sure, much of it were 7-bit ASCII graphics, but heck, it was digital content transferred over an information channel... Dang, where did I put those CP/M 5.25" floppies with them text files?
I had it good. I even had a daisy wheel that provided better looking output then them cheap 7 pin dot matrix text with no descenders.