Patent Issued For Podcasting 150
pickens writes "The EFF is reaching out for help after a company called Volomedia got the Patent Office to grant them exclusive rights to 'a method for providing episodic media' that could threaten the community of podcasters and millions of podcast listeners. 'It's a ridiculously broad patent, covering something that many folks have been doing for many years,' writes Rebecca Jeschke. 'Worse, it could create a whole new layer of ongoing costs for podcasters and their listeners.' To bust this patent, EFF is looking for additional 'prior art' — evidence that the podcasting methods described in the patent were already in use (PDF) before November 19, 2003. 'In particular, we're looking for written descriptions of methods that allow a user to download pre-programmed episodic media like audio files or video files from a remote publisher, with the download occurring after the user subscribes to the episodes, and with the user continuing to automatically receive new episodes.'"
Re:Not sure (Score:2, Funny)
Are you sure you want this patent handed over to RealAudio?
Re:Not sure (Score:5, Funny)
Hello. I have noticed you have made a mention of RealAudio in some way, shape, or form. As a member of teh intarnets, I am required to make at least one "Buffering" joke at the expense of RealMedia, no matter how much this situation has changed in the past ten to fifteen years.
To provide you with some backstory as to this joke, I will mention that I was, in fact, a child of the 80s and 90s. Like most such people, my mind is permanently stuck in that time period, because, as I am certain you are aware, everything was much much better back then. For instance, video games were harder, and thus better, in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, and it is my firm belief that the sole purpose of homebrew with modern consoles is to provide us with another vector of emulators so we can play Chrono Trigger for the eight thousandth time (as we all know, the eight thousandth time is the best), and that there is absolutely no reason why anyone should ever stop playing the Mega Man series non-stop. Also, cartoons were far better in the 90s, especially Transformers (heralded by our Lord and Savior, Optimus Prime, hallowed be his name), and said cartoons were in no possible way cynically-designed marketing ploys to sell cheap plastic toys, which were also awesome and I have them all and refuse to give them up.
As you can see, I enjoy my pathetic attempts to live in the past, as, following my cultural entrenchment there, that is all I have*. Therefore, I refuse to acknowledge any sort of external factors in RealMedia's historic buffering issues. Issues such as, but not limited to, the lack of proliferation of broadband internet access like we have today. Ergo, despite there not being any more problems with RealMedia than with other streaming media formats (in fact, some may say it is now far more reliable than many), it is so buried in my psyche and so desperately held on to as a reminder of a time long past when I was actually cool and popular that I must continue to make said jokes until such time as I die a bitter, broken man, missing out on life itself.
So, without further ado, I will state for the record that Leo may have done this back in the day, but after buffering, we only found out about it now.
Thank you, and good day to you.
*: As an amusingly ironic side note, I will delight in telling people older than I am to "get with the times" in any of a wide variety of ways.
Re:Patent on "Being tired of this patent ..." (Score:3, Funny)
However, I have created a new way to be tired of patents. By replacing degradable biological byproducts with miscellaneous debris from the auto industry, I have patented being tired of Patent Junk. And I get a car analogy too!
Re:Not sure (Score:2, Funny)
What?
Re:Not sure (Score:4, Funny)
Napster on dial-up (Score:2, Funny)