Slashdot Mirror


Acacia Climbing the Food Chain

superflex writes "CNet and others have articles today related to a story that appeared here a couple months ago regarding Acacia Media Technologies, who hold several U.S. and international patents that they claim give them exclusive rights to compressed digital media transmission technologies. The previous article, for the lazy among you, was an AskSlashdot about whether the askers' pr0n site should pay license fees to these guys. Seems that since then, they've moved on to some internet radio sites, and are actually getting fees out of them. Their claims haven't been challenged in court yet, but they appear very broad, possibly covering PPV on cable/satellite as well as internet-based streaming. One wonders if they might try going after one of the big boys soon."

1 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Can someone pls hack the patent system? by gilgamesh2001 · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    OK, ppl, this is insane. This is war.

    You can't do one-click. You can't do shopping carts. You can't do streaming. You can't do SHIT!!!

    I thought you couldn't patent an idea, only a specific implementation of that idea.

    In any case, this is going to far.

    Can some crackers out there massively fuck with the Patent system in the US, please?

    Can you hack/crack in, kill everything digital, burn everything paper, so we can all start from square one?

    Or, what about a massive DDOS on everything connected to the patent office? Or cracking into their computers/servers/database.

    Someone, somewhere, white or black hat, has got to be able to do something to save us all from the fucking do-nothing-productive, make-nothing, sue-happy, blood-sucking, parasitic lawyers and companies out there.

    FYI this is a rhetorical question meant for discussion of ethical consquences. I would never endorse breaking the law of the land you, dear reader, happen to live in!