With a small number of companies – Acacia Media Research, USA Video, SightSound – making broad patent claims of one or another kind against online streaming media, and a number of companies likewise challenging those claims in or out of court, Texas Internet veteran Brandon Shalton decided at minimum that an information campaign was in order.
He set up FightThePatent.com earlier this month, mostly to help "generate awareness" of these patent issues, their prospective ramifications, and to help separate the actual from the alleged when it comes to such patent claims and those whose businesses it might affect, in or out of the adult Internet.
"There's so many patent abuse cases that you read about," Shalton said in a telephone interview with AVN.com "And I, like many people, dismissed them, because it didn't fall into my back yard at first. And that got me motivated enough to do something, because I could have been called just as guilty as most people who were just as apathetic because it didn't affect them."
Shalton formerly had a Website known as SpokenMessages.com, a site which digitized church pastors' messages and sermons into files that could be heard on Windows Media and Real Media and allowed visitors to listen to them online. Because he suspected his site might, technically, be infringing on the Acacia patent claim – a series of patents that company calls digital media technology – he took the site down practically before it was running in full.
He isn't involved either in any kind of licensing negotiations or litigation with Acacia, the Newport Beach, California firm which has been pressing a number of adult Internet companies over the past few months to either license Acacia's claimed patents or face litigation in court.
"I am not named in the suits," he said. "I voluntarily took my Website down. And that put me in a position to speak my mind. If I kept the Website up, and Acacia would have tried to shut me down or try to take me to court, I might not be able to speak as freely. And I believe so much in getting the word out, that I took my own Website down."
He'll get no argument from New Destiny Media/Homegrown Video chief Spike Goldberg, who said he applauds Shelton's effort.
"It complements what we are doing," he said, alluding to the Internet Media Protection Association, a group Goldberg and VideoSecrets chief Greg Clayman pulled together earlier this year, and whose Web site finally began running in full at August's end. "We finally got that damn thing pushed out," he said. "It was like giving birth, but we got it up."
The IMPA was formed in part to challenge Acacia's streaming media patent claims and in larger part to make a beginning toward consolidating new interest among the adult Internet's players in looking out for each other and their mutual business interests and advances.
"I think it's helpful," Goldberg said of Shelton's site. "I think he's able to do and say things that we can't. It's freedom of speech, people should be able to speak out and say what they want, and it's a service to everyone on the Net right now."
Shalton isn't exactly a stranger to the adult Internet. His previous work has included rebuilding zmaster.com, a Lee Noga Website converting to a database-driven site with shopping cart capability; creating technology for another Noga site, OnTheRopes.com, a Webmaster resource board; and, other technical consulting and operating for other Websites.
"I have never been an adult Webmaster," he said, "but I am very familiar with the industry and businesses practices being an outsider-insider lurker."
And it isn't just Acacia's patent claims that Shalton wants at once to learn more about and, if and where necessary, contribute information to a fight against. USA Video has sued Movielink.com, a Hollywood studio joint venture, saying Movielink violates a USA Video patent for an online movie delivery system. And SightSound.com has sued a few Internet companies, including MP3.com and MusicBoulevard, saying those and other such music program sites infringed on SightSound's patents for the method of selling audio and video files online, even though MP3.com sold nothing.
Those cases are seen as having potentially far-reaching effects on the future of online video and audio media, including potential effects on such familiar companies as RealNetworks, Microsoft, LiquidAudio, and Apple Computer, among others.
Shalton said he has been spending time researching whatever he can think of involving streaming media technology, patent law, and prior art, particularly since the defenses against such litigation may well depend on how well, if at all, such respondents can demonstrate such prior art claim as would legally invalidate any or all of those patent claims.
He has shared information, for example, with companies who haven't yet been contacted about licensing deals with patent claimants. But he also said he's shared information with those who are challenging Acacia's streaming media patent claims, and with the law firm representing some of them in the case.
"I've spoken to both the defendants and the defense attorneys," Shalton said. "I provided some prior art leads to them. Just doing my own research, doing different areas on what I believe could (lead to) expert witnesses or actual prior art, like files, that illustrate a possibility for invalidating the patents."
Prior art, in simplest terms, involves showing that the patented idea or methodology had existed, in whole or in enough parts, at least a year before the patent claim in question was filed.
Shalton thinks companies like Acacia, USA Video, and SightSound.com might have done better just to negotiate royalty payments, rather than push for ongoing licensing deals. "There never would have been any issues," he said. "And none of us would bother to get involved."
