Quote:
Originally posted by JR@Oct 9 2003, 11:41 PM
what is the patent and what are they trying to license exactly?
is it people who are streaming feeds via Real or Windows media format? or something else... or what?
just for streaming video in general? for what exactly?
i have never been clear on this. how can they go after people who make money for streaming feeds and not go after the people who create all the software which makes it possible? if they can/should be targeting those companies, what is being done to force those companies who make and sell those technologies to take a position on this issue?
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All great questions.... alot of answers can be found at my website at
http://www.FightThePatent.com
Acacia Research has a patent that they claim and interpret to mean owning the process to downloading/streaming of audio/video files from a (web) server.
Their patent doesn't cover live video streams... only pre-recorded ones.
You don't need a streaming server (ie. Windows Media, Real Media server, etc) to be infringing their patent.. any HTTP or FTP server can act as the method of transmission/delivery.
So if you have any audio or video on your website, or you link directly to any audio or video, then you are infringing upon their patent in their eyes.
You would think that they would just got after people who make the technology, but patent law allows them to target anyone who is using the patented idea without a license.
Think about it this way, instead of getting a few million from M$, Real, or Apple, why not find 100,000 websites that have audio/video, get them to pay the minimum licensing fee of $1,500 (more if you make over $50L/year)...this gets them $150 million dollars per year... pretty nice for a publicly traded company huh?
I got outraged over this news over 2 months ago, stopped my consulting and ventures to focus just on this.
Now my efforts are becoming more formalized in forming a non-profit organization called Fight The Patent Foundation.
Details of the entity and the pledge drive is at
http://www.FightThePatent.com/go
I would encourage all webmasters who have audio or video on their website to pledge just $100 to help reach the goal of raising $250,000.
once the pledge goal is reached, then the pledge becomes a donation request. I don't collect any money until the goal has been reached.
Currently, over $5000 has been pledged by your fellow webmasters. You can view the updated totals on the website (
http://www.FightThePatent.com/go)
Fight the Patent!