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."

Comments

It's ironic...

[Anonvmous Coward]

... 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.

Re:It's ironic...

[ryochiji]

>Yet, the porn industry has been able to thrive even in a highly saturated market.

You don't ever mess with the porn industry. And the MPAA knows that.

I'm serious. The porn industry has proven itself to be vital in propogation of new technologies. Whether it's the internet, "rich content" or cable TV, the porn industry has always lead the industry at large. Killing the porn industry is equivalent to technological suicide.

Organize!

[L. VeGas]

They need to form alliances with sister organizations such as the International Petroleum Jelly Manufacturing Consortium and the Repetitive Stress Disorder Sufferer's Association.

Brilliant move

[lightspawn]

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.

They chose the wrong name...

[dfn5]

Now, several online porn companies are forming an association called IMPA (the 'Internet Media Protective Association').

It should've been Protecting Internet Media Porn. I wonder if there is still time to change it.

An offer they can't refuse

[Arcturax]

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.

Re:mm..

[binaryDigit]

clean the tubes

I know this will get mod'ed off topic, but what the hell, I have karma to burn

That statement reminds me of a joke (apologies to our foreign friends if you don't get it)

A guy was at the hospital getting ready to get a vasectomy. He was in a sour mood knowing the fate that was about to befall him. After removing his clothes and donning his hospital gown, he was lead by a nurse down the halls of the hospital to go to see the doctor how was to perform the procedure. On the way down the hall, he happened to glance into a room. In that room he saw several attractive nurses giving BJ's to the male patients. "Holy Cow, what's going on in there" he asked. The nurse calmly replied that those men were also getting vasectomies, and that as a pre-surgery procedure, they want to make sure that the mans plumbing was clear of any semen. Now his demeanour picked right up and his pace quickened down the hallway. He then happened to glance another room, and in this room there were several men in gowns holding Playboys while jacking off. "What is going on in there?" he asked puzzled. The nurse replied, "Oh, the same thing, but they belong to an HMO."

Best quote in article

[MadAnthony02]

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

They need to get the MPAA and RIAA in on this

[Paul Johnson]

The traditional media industries are not going to like this one little bit. At present Acacia is going after what they call "low hanging fruit", because in cases like this its often the bigger legal budget that wins. Once Acacia has some money and precedents under its belt it can tackle the bigger boys.

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.

Viscious lawsuit circle ahoy!

[Dark Lord Seth]

I can already imagine the following:

• 10: **AA sues Acacia for distributing the technology which allows copyright infringement.
• 20: Acacia sues the **AA for allowing artists to use media types they own a patent on.
• 30: GOTO 10

A telling quote

[EschewObfuscation]

[From the article]

"What we did before we purchased the company (Greenwich) was to spend considerable time and resources evaluating this portfolio as to whether we think these patents are valid and whether they are enforceable," Berman said. "We did several prior art searches... It was important to go to the marketplace knowing what we had was valid."
[snip]
"We're not willing to put anyone out of business; we're not looking to change anyone's behavior," Berman said. "If people feel that this is something they need to challenge in court, fine. But if they challenge this in court, 75 percent of the people will likely spend more in court fees than they'll spend in royalties to us. If they're successful, they'll recoup those fees. If they're not successful" Berman shrugged.

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.

Hmm.. well, check two articles down.

[User 956]

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 legal term "go fuck yourself" applies

[poot_rootbeer]

I'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.

Can anybody say Doctine of Laches?

[SirSlud]

http://www.lectlaw.com/def/l056.htm

or better

http://www.zurichre-na.com/web/converium/converi um .nsf/articles/5731FF9F4372B6ED85256B43006EA07D?Ope nDocument

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.

Re:I say, "Great!"

[LostCluster]

It's that kind of logic that these twerps are hoping for...

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 .mpg of porn, it's a violation to transfer a .mpg of a religious gathering too.

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?

The contribution of business to the internet

[harangutan]

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.

Prior art

[afidel]

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.

Why Porn?

[spoonboy42]

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.