|
Written by Brandon Shalton 7-Jun-2004
Court docs filed by the defendants in opposition to the Class Action proposal (filed on 6-June)
|
Acacia to lump all adult industry into Class Action Lawsuit based on 2257
In the beginning of this Acacia Saga, Acacia looked at the Adult Entertainment industry as "low hanging fruit", meaning it should be easy pickings to generate alot of licensing revenue. Acacia was happy to be a "partner in porn" by taking 2-4% of gross revenue of companies. They wanted to "dip their beaks" into many companies. The problem with their plan is that many companies didn't like having new partners and made it their "business decision" to band together to fight against the patent claims. Then, this all became personal. At Streaming Media East Confernce, Robert Berman said that people were stealing their property and that the adult industry had been using their property for many years. Robert Berman, General Counsel for Acacia, used the analogy that it is just like someone coming into your garage and taking your rake. Now, they have officially tried to put a patent on porn by filing for a class action lawsuit against all adult entertainment websites that require a 2257 statement. If you have a 2257 statement on your site, whether you are a content producer or a webmaster that uses video content, you have now been lumped together (and don't think that removing your 2257 statement will get you off the hook). The judge should be making a decision on July 7th of whether to approve of this class action. If he approves it, it will mean every adult site that has audio or video will now have to deal with Acacia.
|
