I thought I would pass this along. There is a company in the US that claims to own 5 patents on all types of media delivered over the internet and other means. When I read about this a few months ago I chuckled and said "Yeah Right" Well guess what, I got the inside scoop from friends at Matrix and as laughable as it is these guys have been winning the battle and many big content providers have been buying the Royalty license and others that didn't have found their sites shut down. Right now Acacia is targeting the adult market but any site that has any form or streaming or downloadable audio/video is subject to pay the fee.
Now the fee is no laughing matter if your site earns an income of even $1.00 the base royalty payable is 1500.00. Where this will effect Sambar users is simply if you host or own a site that has any media whether it is yours or not is responsible. Acacia has successfully shut down some pretty big organizations simply by going to the owner of the IP range (ISP's) and said that their network was being used and infringing on these patents. When I received my letter on Friday I wrote to Acacia and found that they were willing to negotiate on these fees. I won't go into more details but if this effects you in any way email me, perhaps I can we can compare notes or even form a small group to better negotiate our interests. You can contact me directly by going to my very barren homepage and use the "Contact" link www.iwebsl.com Peter PS sorry Alex of the chatter ------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe please go to http://www.sambar.ch/list/
