Slashdot Mirror
Adam Carolla Joins Fight Against Podcast Patent Troll
First time accepted submitter tor528 (896250) writes "Patent troll Personal Audio has sued top podcasters including Adam Carolla and HowStuffWorks, claiming that they own the patent for delivery of episodic content over the Internet. Adam Carolla is fighting back and has started a Fund Anything campaign to cover legal fees. From the Fund Anything campaign page: 'If Adam Carolla loses this battle, then every other Podcast will be quickly shut down. Why? Because Patent Trolls like Personal Audio would use a victory over Carolla as leverage to extort money from every other Podcast.. As you probably know, Podcasts are inherently small, owner-operated businesses that do not have the financial resources to fight off this type of an assault. Therefore, Podcasts as we know them today would cease to exist.' James Logan of Personal Audio answered Slashdotters' questions in June 2013.
Links to the patent in question can be found on Personal Audio's website. The EFF filed a challenge against Personal Audio's podcasting patent in October 2013."
I wouldn't say he "joined the fight" against patent trolls. He was sued by one and decided to very loudly and publicly fight it - in part so other podcasts aren't put out of buisness. Hence the Fund Anything campaign etc. I listen to his show often, and it's a constant topic.
More power to him!
Watch out patent trolls, your tables WILL be smashed!!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
ie. radio?
Give them a hand!
550 Fannin Street
Suite 1313
Beaumont, Texas 77701
E-mail: info@personalaudio.net
Phone: (409) 768-0009
I remember a quaint world where the lowest of the bottom-feeders were merely chasing ambulances.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
"If Adam Carolla loses this battle, then every other Podcast will be quickly shut down."
lol no
'If Adam Carolla loses this battle, then every other Podcast in America will be quickly shut down."
lol yes
After all religion is the patent troll of human experience.
-- thinkyhead software and media
I'm tired of hearing about patent holders coming out years (maybe a decade in this case?) after something has already been in common use, and declare that they invented it. Patents should be like trademarks in this regard in that if you don't protect it from the beginning, you lose it. You shouldn't be able to make claims about something that's already being used for year by hundreds of millions of people around the world. It's not just this case, but many others, and it doesn't just affect small time guys but big time guys too. I remember some company coming around years after a game console was released (can't remember which one) saying they had a patent on the controller. You shouldn't be allowed to let somebody infringe on your patent for years and then demand all the backpay. There are too many patents for the people making the products to know if they are infringing. If you have so many patents that you can't keep track of whether or not people are infringing, maybe it's time to let a few of them go.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Marc Maron has been fighting this fight for years. WTF, Slashdot?
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
You need to fight this problem at the source: the patent office. Generalized patents like this shouldn't be awarded, and generalized patents already granted should be revoked. Take away the trolls ammo and tell the troll he's not getting any future ammo.
email newsletter subscribers are no different than podcasts especially where webmail is considered. The user logs to a site, receives material that may be 'episodic' and may include audio. Death to the trolls!
So a little while ago I felt like I had a great big healthy shit coming on. I mean it makes sense. I have been adding more fiber to my diet lately. So I sat on my white porcelain throne and then ... *unghhnhhghhghh* *PLOP* Ah. Wow that was a big one. Damn it this is a big, wide, long log. It'll probably fold in half and get stuck and clog the fucking toilet. Again. Ah well. I will deal with that if and when it happens.
... oh no. I feel something knotty. Yup, what I feared from this turd has come to pass. I have lots of hairs around my asshole. I suppose most men do. Nature's way of saying "I love you! But not that much."
It was such a wide turd-log with such girth though. Amazing that my otherwise virgin asshole can expand that wide. Hmm that could be a problem. So I start to wipe. Damn it this could take a while. I got feces smeared on the sides of my ass cheeks from the girth of that turd. I wipe some more and
There it is. I can feel it through the single ply paper. A great big DINGLEBERRY. Naturally I try to awkwardly grab it with a folded sheet of toilet paper and dislodge it. I pull. Ouch. I pull harder. OUCH. Wow during its brief passage past the asshair, this turd-let really securely managed to get caught on some ass hairs. I can't just pull the dingleberry out without ripping the hairs right out. I have no idea if that caries the possibility of breaking the fecal encrusted skin and leading to an infection or what, but I know it would hurt so I want other options. I try gathering lots of sheets of toilet paper. I repeatedly wipe the same area over and over, hoping to wear this fucker down. I manage to whittle it down a little but this is taking far too much time. This turd is really determined to stay in its new home!
I can't very well pull my underpants back up now, that would get them all shitty and smelly. If I wanted to smell bad all the time I would let myself get fat. Maybe some water will help. I awkwardly reach for the faucet, turning it to a slow stream, and wet some toilet paper, making a mental note to disinfect the faucet handle later. I can't see the damned thing but judging from the brown stains appearing on the sheets of toilet paper, I am at least making progress. Now my hands are wet and shitty smelling and I am thinking this better be worth it. I use a dry sheet to feel for the dingleberry again. It did shrink but it's still there, dangling from my ass hairs, mocking me. WTF have I been eating lately to produce such a persistent turd? Nature does abhor a vacuum, which is why lots of gas has entered my bowels where the big turd-log recently was. I enjoy a nice after-defecating loud fart while I wonder what to do next. I chuckle because when the fart is your own, you don't think it stinks but you know somebody else would evacuate the area. Ok time to stop laughing, this is a serious predicament.
I toy with the idea of getting some scissors or something to try and cut the dingleberry out. Then I consider this is a sensitive area, I cannot see what I am doing, and it's too close for comfort to my cock and balls to be wielding a bladed item. I am starting to get angry. I am starting to not care anymore about the consequences of just yanking the damned thing out. I tried the easier ways and they failed. Fuck it, I have places to be and things to do. I can't very well spend all day in the bathroom playing a not-so-fun game with a turd. I double up on toilet paper and get a good secure grip on the dingleberry. Okay fucker, you're going DOWN. *YANK* Yeouch, fuck that hurt as much as I thought it would. And there it is, in my hand, nestled in the folds of toilet paper: my dingleberry! Ha ha ha, you won the battle, dingleberry, but I just won the war! I rub my sore ass cheek. Then I ceremoniously plop that fucker in the toilet bowl, to briefly swim with his big brother log. Oh man, you never heard such a satisfying flushing sound in your life. I rub some aftershave aroun
Once again, we have a patent which seems to say "a system and methodology for doing something well known, but with a computer".
Are the USPTO that incompetent? Podcasts of one form or another are what, 20 years old now?
This is just stupid. There is known prior art for this from at least 1993, and if someone thinks sending out the next in a series of files is an 'innovation', they and the patent examiners who awarded the patent are idiots.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
More proof that the whole IP field (patents, copyrights, etc.) is totally out of control and needs to be re-written from the ground up.
Its been more than decade, maybe we just don't reauthorize the PATRIOT act.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
How a cassette tape device in any way resembles a digital audio system where you can download a file that has a playlist and that playlist is updated periodically. Logan says he wanted his product to be digital but just didn't get there.
...and then there is this Podcasting History, oddly no mention of PersonalAudio - Pioneers in Playlists & Episodic Content.
On a side note, I think I have prior art. I used to do that with my Vic 20, of course when you put the cassette in the walkman the sound that came out was hard to listen to.
How can you patent using the Internet as a printing press? Cloning and copying and transferring data is core to what it is.
If someone invents roads, is there suddenly a land grab to patent using roads to ship X, or Y, or Z?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
How hard could this patent be to get around? Parent claims are only 1,13,23 and 31. The first of those three talk about in some form right off the bat of "reproducing media program files". The media file isn't being reproduced. It's saved and played. Plus those seem to be centered on the player - which shouldn't be the problem of the podcaster right?
31 is the harder one but that looks like a playlist or like an RSS file of sorts. Check this file and see if there is something new in the list available.
Either that or I'm off base so just don't be a troll.... humor attempt failed...
unibrow.
Quiet, do not insult the USPTO overlords. They might decide software patches are "episodic content".
No more patching games after the fact without paying the trolls then!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Give me a break, this guy is nothing more than a clown, who kissed the Blarney Stone one too many times. Personally, I hope this guy becomes another footnote in the small history of jerks on the radio.
Was it really not filed until 2009? Isn't there more than 10 years of prior art on this?
I can probably dig up more than a few sites that had episodic content accessible by predetermined URLs that long predated the filing. Probably from enough different content providers to declare it obvious (in the patent sense) as well.
No it isn't, and no it doesn't. Some people abusing the system doesn't mean you throw out the system.
Oh no! a car model had a problem lets redesign all cars from the bottom up!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Patent: A methodology for increasing revenue for attorneys via rapid foot-based pursuit of emergency medical vehicles.
The facilities provided by the operating system, such as Windows 95, typically includes multimedia support, as noted above, as well as a standard WINSOCK TCP/IP stack and modem dial up driver software to support a SLIPP/PPP Internet connection, as next discussed.
To effect these file transfers, the modem 115 is connected via conventional dial up telephone SLIP or PPP TCP/IP series data communication link 117 to an Internet service provider...
How about this bit:
At a time determined by player 103 monitoring the time of day clock 106, a dial up connection is established via the service provider 121 and the Interent to the FTP server 125 and the download compiliation 145 is transferred to the program data store 107 in the player 103.
So, how much of this patent applies if I'm using linux over a full time cable internet connection to access Sheldon Cooper's latest Fun with Flags podcast?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Why isn't Personal Audio suing the companies that make the software to allow podcasts to be created and served? Do they think those companies have a much stronger legal team and therefore are choosing to go after the defenseless?
Other than rent seeking by companies, and ensuring the heirs of an author have exclusive rights to make money off their long dead relatives ... what the FUCK does the patent and IP system actually provide us with?
What value to society does Di$ney having an infinite copyright on Mickey Mouse provide? The answer is NONE AT ALL.
I'm inclined to agree with the OP. The entire patent and IP system has become entirely about large multi-nationals and patent trolls having a strangle hold on the rest of the world.
That's a really poor analogy.
Some people abusing the system doesn't mean you throw out the system.
Yes you do. The system is corrupt by design for the sole purpose of protecting entrenched interests. Putzing around with it will fix nothing. Out it goes!
When a car has a fatal flaw, you damn well better redesign it!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Who's calling them "trolls"?
Logan says he wanted his product to be digital but just didn't get there.
In his Slashdot Q&A, Logan gives his reasoning as to why inventors should not be required to create a working copy of their invention. But the example he cites, the capacitive tough screen, was actually produced by its original inventor, Bill Pepper. Pepper just couldn't find a market for his invention (originally developed as an input device for music synthesizers). So he sold the patent rights to Logan's company who successfully marketed it.
This is as it should be. Pepper put in the work and received compensation for it. Logan couldn't even glue existing bits of technology together.
Have gnu, will travel.
Exactly. The system DOES NOT WORK for the it's original purpose of enriching the common good with LIMITED monopolies.
There's nothing limited about them anymore, they continue in perpetuity...
Don't even bother. I could copy and paste what the OP said in a thread about the relation of Chandrasekhar limit and type 1a supernova and still get modded up before someone who mentions the relationship between the "standard candle" and the amount of nickel-56 in the reaction.
IP law is just as much a dead horse around here as religion or politics.
We can all agree that our patent system is broken, but this is not a patent troll case. Here is a great discussion on it by Adam Curry: https://www.noagendaplayer.com/listen/598/2-05-44
Personal Audio has always owned this patent and companies like Apple are not being sued because they actually pay Personal Audio a fee to use their patent witin iTunes, while a show like Corolla's does not.
1993: Carl Malamud launched Internet Talk Radio the "first computer-radio talk show, each week interviewing a computer expert" distributed "as audio files that computer users fetch one by one." I suspect he was using PCM or delta PCM codec, the files were huge, and probably could only be played back on Sun workstations.
1995: Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner started Audionet. Here are downloadable files from Dec. 1996 and I suspect there were earlier ones.
April 1995: RealAudio released by RealNetworks. This was a watershed in audio codec efficiency, and started the launch of a lot of downloadable audio programs.
1996: Microsoft releases NetShow 1.0, a competing streaming player to RealAudio.
I also believe that William Mutual's itv.net was delivering audio files of programs in 1996.
I had a RealAudio server in 1996 and probably was serving up audio files, but frankly I can't remember. I definitely was doing so by 1997.
Where can I download the podcast about this topic?
I'm not sure why this is modded Funny. It's exactly what's going on here! Patent trolling is a protection racket; it's extortion pure and simple.
Um, like me, I think most people use a podcatcher or iTunes to download the 'casts, not the actual player. I suppose phones can download them directly, but it doesn't explicitly mention phones, does it?
Why again is it still illegal to shoot patent trolls on sight? It's not like they serve any sensible purpose.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
why is none of it towards these kinds of people
Ahh memories. my first dog was named Latches.
Please explain to me how listing episodic content is not utterly obvious to everyone let alone experts in the field.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
They didn't file the patent until 2009.
Surely someone who's been doing the same thing for more than 5 years is safe from this?
RSS and the idea behind web syndication has been around for 20 years.
RDF has been a standard for this very purpose since 1999
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp18033.htm
I am 100% entirely serious. This is a modern day version of Al Capone style protection racket organized crime and as such it's entirely reasonableb to kill them.
DING/Ding
UPDATE MARCH 5, 2014:
The court held a hearing today on the subpoena. Good news: Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins agreed with EFF and struck down Personal Audio's demands. The judge will issue a written order shortly; we will publish as soon as we have it.
Personal Audio can try to appeal the decision, so this fight may continue. But for now: victory!
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
WP has some history here:
"History[edit]
The exact timeline of the term oggcast is uncertain, however, The Linux Link Tech Show, one of the longer running Linux podcasts still in production, has a program in the Ogg Vorbis format in its archives from January 7, 2004.[2] Given that a stable release of Ogg Vorbis did not appear until July 19, 2002,[3] it is very likely that the term oggcast was coined sometime between 2002 and 2004."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oggcast)
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Back around 2000 or so, AT&T announced they owned the patent covering a menu on a web site that was replicated on every page. A good example of that "technology" can be found at http://www.personalaudio.net. Notice how as you flip around between pages the top menu remains conveniently the same.
AT&T donated that patent, valued at millions, to the University of Texas, who quietly stuffed it away in their junk room.
For their first case, AT&T picked a little mom and pop educational operation called The Museum Store, or something like that - not Yahoo or anyone big who was doing the same thing. Not a very inspirational story.
Just interesting, that patent violation at personalaudio.net. I'd say something should be done, but I was raised better than to engage in patent fraud.