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Patents

DoubleClick Banner Ad Patent Busted 118

Posted by timothy from the bam-bam-bam dept.
RWoody writes "Noticed today that BountyQuest paid $10 Grand to a porn king for info on the DoubleClick banner ad patent. As always, the porn guys were way ahead of the curve: he had an ad affiliate program long before DoubleClick. Also noticed that they started going after copyrights as well as patents. Not much help for Napster, but I bet there are plenty of companies being pushed around by bogus copyrights, just like with bogus patents."
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DoubleClick Banner Ad Patent Busted

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  • Didn't anybody else notice that this patent hasn't been overturned? Nor has anybody forked up the legal costs to do so. Say IANAL which is true, but DoubleClick still has a legally enforcable patent. Except for a pr0n mongul getting paid I.. Well, I don't really see anything to crow about right now.

    Talk to me again when an appeals court rules against DoubleClick.

  • This is what we need to see more of. More usless patents go bye bye. Amazons 1 click still needs to go. And there are so many others.

    Just think if people patented/copywrited back when cars 1st came out. Ford wouldn't have been able to reverse engineer the automobile (or fix them for that matter) and never came up with the assembly line.

    Now again, think that if he had patened that idea/technology, where would we be today?

  • Not necessarily. [junkbusters.com]

    --
  • I am a bit ashamed of the fact that it took porn to get something accomplished.

    Really, this is quite embarassing.

  • I was thinking that DClick's lawyers may be in a bit of a spot right now, malpractice-wise. That's a common situation for lawyers to be in, actual malpractice or not, when a client spends a lot of money and gets nothing. Imagine when the client spends a lot of money and gets faced by a porn king!
  • And let me add that "piracy" (like in MP3 piracy, I mean) also helps build technology or at least helps people get familiar with it.
  • they've been at the forefront of DVD, wireless internet, etc. pushing the envelope on all of them

    Wireless internet? So _that's_ what made color PDAs possible. If you don't belive me, just look at the name, "Palm Pilot"... double entendre?

    --
  • What kind of moron double-clicks on a banner ad?

    -Waldo
  • In other news, Mother Nature has hired a crack lawyer team to sue the major Biotechnology companies, claiming prior art in splicing DNA and creating new life forms. The lawyers claim that their client has used this method, which they call "Evolution" for more than 13 billion years.

    Biotech firm, Slice and Dice Them had this to say, "We do not believe that this Mother company has any rights to our methods of gene manipulation and we don't have much time for these freeloaders that are trying to capitalize on our hard work."

    =-=-=-=-=

  • Re:Ummm... (Score:3)

    by ecampbel ( 89842 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @02:03PM (#375859)
    A key part of DoubleClick's patent is not present in the porn mogul's business plan: DoubleClick's use of cookies to identify a user across all of DoubleClick's affiliate web sites. The use of cookies allows DoubleClick to ensure that adds are not repeated, and helps them target their adds more effectively. It is much more interesting to advertisers to know that a person has visited www.macnn.com [macnn.com], www.news.com [news.com] www.macintoch.com [macintouch.com], and www.slashdot.com [slashdot.com], then to simply know that the user is viewing an add from www.slashdot.com [slashdot.com].

    While some might say DoubleClick's use of cookies is the most insidious part of their patent, I believe it is a significant enough improvement over the porn king's business plan to make it's patent still stand up. At any rate is is far to soon to proclaim that DoubleClick's patent is "busted".

  • Really? Name one technology that porn industry is responsible for. I eagerly await news of the porn industry's research lab and its accomplishments.

    Innovation in the porn industry is usually some desparate schmuch looking for an angle and with nothing left to lose. Its not even big porn names that adopt tech, its the usual case of some greaser facing bankruptcy. Pornographers have never been responsible for tech or even the first to adopt new tech. They use established (packaged, usually) tech early and their visibility gives people the exact mistaken impression you have.

    I would not be surprised if this guy who claimed the 10,000 on behalf of his banner tracking software did nothing but add minor embellishishments to some pre-existing banner perl script.

  • It's not just the Internet which owes innovation to porn. Anyone remember Virtual Valerie? It was one of the first "Killer Apps" for CD-ROM drives in the early 90's. It's a porno game on CD-ROM which helped spawn the "multimedia" concept.

    -jon

  • Actually, Swedish television did an experiment with multiple viewing angles in 1995.

    It was a soap opera ("Nudlar och nollåttor", for those of you who like Swedish) that was sent simultaneously in the two state owned channels, where you could choose your angle by switching channels.

    It was a complete fiasco, though, and apart from being an interesting experiment all it did for me was that it occupied both the two good channels that don't have commercials...

  • I guess if you got someone to make a movie of you, it'd be okay.

    I don't really know the exact legalities since I have interest in either pornography nor prostitution, although it's certainly a case of a double standard. <sarcasm> But we all know Freedom of Speech trumps everything, including common sense, morality and other rights. </sarcasm>

  • umm.. yes you need to apply for a copyright. I've applied for a two actually. an SR and PA, sound recording and performing arts. like $30 each. you can read some more here [loc.gov]


    Nice work, Focker!
  • So then, by your definition, taking some existing piece of tech and saying "I can make this better", and then doing it, is not innovative?

    Innovation rarely takes the form of creating new technologies, but in making what exists easier to use and more efficient. Or in finding different ways to use it. In other words, creating a better mouse trap. I don't think you can deny the porn industry has come up with several of those in their time.

    -Rob Nolan
  • As far as getting porn from them, well I wouldn't know. I doubt that it was really that good, though.

    On the other hand, getting money from them, well that was a different story. A few years back me and my friends wrote some http client emulators and raped that company for a lot of money, a lot. More then he got for ousting this patent, anyway. (Almost as bad as he raped his 'customers') Hey, the agreement was based on unique IPs not people, and I was a crusader against bad porn and unethical companies, um, yeh.

    sigh if only the money was as free now as it was thing,



    Rate me on Picture-rate.com [picture-rate.com]
  • but that last post sounds like someone who is indignant that porn is so much more successful than the vast majority of 'e-businesses'

    First of all, porn sites are as much a hit and miss affair as other sites. They come and go with at least the same frequency as any other e business. My main point is that its bad enough that pornographers exaggerate their status, now we also have people like you who make similiar claims without ever having seen their books.

    Do a search for Warshevsky on wired - this is the self described mogul, the million dollar brain behind club love and the pamela anderson videos. This guy is facing bankruptcy.

    Look at the guy who won the 10,000$. This guy ran xpics. xpics was found guilty of credit card fraud amongst other fraudulent activity. This is "success" to you??

    Search that soft core rag, salon.com, for their articles on the porn industry. This is _not_ an industry that anyone looking for success will get into if they knew a few facts and they had a few alternatives.

    It's an over hyped scam from content to book keeping, every step of the way.

    I'm a pornographer. I know how this business works. I know who has the money and who doesnt. I do but that's only because I was around since before even playboy and penthouse put up their shingle on the web.

    And dissing someone becuase they may have repurposed some perl code in a new way? Never heard of that? jeez.....

    I'm not dissing anyone. I'm telling you that the porn industry is not responsible for a single technological innovation.
  • Example: Some photographer takes a snapshot of a tree just off a coastal highway that's been growing in that spot for some three hundred years. Sells its likeness in photos, sculpture, company logos. Photographer goes bananas when they see someone else photographed the same tree later, and sue to prevent any commercial use except their own.
  • I don't know which sites (I was R&D, not webmaster), only the year : 1996.

    In 1996 the internet was already satiated with porn sites, all of them doing the same thing and not one of those same things was any different than what you would find on sites which didnt feature naked people.

    You seem to be quite reluctant about these guys, don't you ?

    Not as reluctant as I am about tiresome slashdot pundits arguing from incomplete, innacurate information. Its just a bald faced lie; the porn industry isnt responsible for any technology, not ever. They are just visible when they adopt existing technology. That is it.
  • Your point being?

    Prior art is prior art. If the patented technique was disclosed before they applied for the patent, the patent isn't valid. The fact that Oracle owns Rdb now doesn't make any difference.

  • Your arguments are quite incomplete too : you just say that this industry is not responsible... blah blah but how do you demonstrate it ?
    I was there and I cant tell you they were *among the first* to develop such stuff in Java in 1996.
    BTW, not that I have that huge knowledge of pr0n, but it seems to me that few other people dared to charge via applet based secure credit card pament system.
    But well, you are much more extreme than me by having your position as at least, I were there and I could appreciate what was going on there (I also developped huge systems for others companies but no one included these features).
    --

  • I think one possible solution to the problem of bad patents is to set up a sort of Foundation that takes donations and uses them to research and prove prior art (or something) on bad patents.

  • This has already been discussed here several times. My response from the last round can be found here [verizon.net].

    That's actually my old website. The main one seems to be down.

  • "Imagine watching your favorite porno and getting the shot from 5 different views...

    And how would you know this???
  • Hahah...good lord. Where are those moderator points when I need them.
  • Multiple angles in porn is already here. I was in seattle about a year ago browsing dvds with a buddy of mine when he called me over to the stack of dvds at the end and pointed to ones with "multiple angles" as a special feature.

    I'm not a porn dvd viewer myself, so I can't say if multiple angles is done for certain scenes, or if you can view the entire "movie" from different angles.

    This would be interesting for interactive childrens dvds too... imagine a full length feature using "build your own adventure[1]" type stories.

    [1] Some books I read as a kid (early-mid 80s) were "Build your own adventure" books, where you'd get to the bottom of a page and it would say something like "do you jump into the time machine or keep running? If you jump in, turn to page 42, if you keep running, turn to page 24". They were quite fun IIRC.
  • Porn has driven most new technologies. Some of the first uses of Gutenberg's new printing press was to mass-produce naughty (by the standards of the time) stories. The camera probably hadn't been in existence more than twenty seconds before Monsieur Daguerre took a snapshot of his skippy. Movies? There's silent-era porn still in existence. Usenet? Web? You got it. Argue morality until you're blue in the face but the industry definitely seems to attract the early adopter.

  • Captain Obvious Rides Again (Score:5)

    by SubtleNuance ( 184325 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:20PM (#375878) Journal
    Simple Logic: Why doesnt the Patent Office fire up a Slashcode based website and give the community-at-large an opportunity to diffuse patents *before* they are issued?

    If disclosure is a problem - just issue ALL (*everything* not just technology) patents with a 2-3-4mos. 'community review period. Simple. No more bad patents.

  • I also own a (small) production company. We investigate anything that could give us an edge and make our work just that much better ( appling it is another story )

    ONEPOINT

    spambait e-mail
    my web site artistcorner.tv hip-hop news
    please help me make it better
  • I don't think the patent can be overturned unless DC tries to enforce it. Which they may be reluctant to do given evidence of prior art. This doesn't have to go to the courts to have real effects.

  • Copyrights? (Score:3)

    by harvardian ( 140312 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:24PM (#375881)
    That was a pretty weak attempt to apply the mis-granting of patents to copyrights. The whole point of the patent problem is that patents are granted, often by people who have no clue what's going on. Copyrights, on the other hand, are never granted, they're only enforced. Any time you create something original you have the copyright to it, you don't need to apply for anything.

    I doubt there's going to be any porn king who comes along and says that he actually wrote "Fields of Gold" and "Enter Sandman," although that definitely would help out napster users.

  • p0rn and pri0r art. (Score:5)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:26PM (#375882)
    I understand that the p0rn industry also has prior art on lots of innovative ways to make babies, including methods that aren't obvious to every skilled worker in the field.

    --

  • Tennis patents (Score:4)

    by mystery_boy_x ( 322417 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:27PM (#375883) Homepage Journal
    Maybe BountyQuest can have a look at this patent
    (from http://www.abanet.org/journal/mar01/fstate.html)?

    Similarly, Serena and Venus Williams could clobber Kevin and George Repper in a doubles match on a tennis court. The Reppers, though, could force a rematch in federal court if the swinging sisters dared to appropriate their patented tennis stroke. As described in the abstract of patent No. 5,993,336 (Nov. 30, 1999), this technique consists of wearing kneepads and swatting the ball "either while the covered knee is on the tennis court surface or just prior to the knee contacting the tennis court surface." This innovation "enables a player to successfully return balls that otherwise are out of effective stroking reach," the patent claim concludes.

    Someone prove prior art by posting a picture of yourself wearing kneepads

  • I think ( don't flaim me I can't remmember ) that in the 50's there was a movie that had 4 or 5 breaks at the turning points and the people that saw the movie were able to elect what the character would do, does he hang or live, left door or right ... all the way to the end.

    Now I know it's not multiple angles but the idea of seeing the storyline from another perspective is symular.

    someone will know the movie and the author

    ONEPOINT

    spambait e-mail
    my web site artistcorner.tv hip-hop news
    please help me make it better
  • Simple Logic: Why doesnt the Patent Office fire up a Slashcode based website and give the community-at-large an opportunity to diffuse patents *before* they are issued?
    Simpler Logic: How does that help the USPTO collect money? How does keeping prices low by not granting monopolies help [hushed whisper] The Economy?

    -jhp

  • Do you think that Bountyquest has the patent for "overturing overly-broad and mis-issued patents through the use of an electronically distributed, peer-to-peer network?"
  • Actually, the porn insdustry is ALWAYS ahead of the curve. Many porn sites, such as my own, WILL NOT use popups at all. The porn industry is already eliminating them, when the mainstream web sites are just getting into them. The porn industry tried them years ago, discovered that surfers hate them, and they're on the decline now.

  • Only if the USPTO has to start paying back the patent registration fees they collected. Preferably with interest and penalties.

    There's no incentive for the USPTO to care about prior art -- they get paid more when they issue a patent than when they turn it down, and doing their own search is just added overhead. We'll keep getting these bogus patents until some branch of the government slaps them silly and stops rewarding the practise. (And the PTO operates on the funds it collects, it doesn't just pass it through to the general fund.)
  • You're right on. Ask any ISP, and you'll find out that the biggest customers (the ones who need the biggest pipes, and can actually pay for them) are the porn sites. It's been this way for years. A lot of technology has been invented by the porn industry that is ignored by the 'mainstream' industry because of the stigma that some people attach to porn. But, that's fine by us. We'll continue to be profitable while companies like Amazon go into debt to the tune of $2 billion.

  • So then, by your definition, taking some existing piece of tech and saying "I can make this better", and then doing it, is not innovative?

    That would depend on what you mean by 'better.' But do even they do that much? No doubt they've popularized VHS and javascript horrors but they havent improved them one ioata. Give me an example of this better mousetrap you speak of. I cannot think of any. Streaming video? I'll buy you a night out with a hooker if you cite some pornographer in the credits of a codec. There is very little technology in use in the porn industry. It shouldnt be too difficult to find an example of innovation in that death of examples.

    I don't think you can deny the porn industry has come up with several of those in their time.

    For instance?
  • ah, porn kings brought the internet to the masses, yet keep it free from corporate tyranny

  • Our favorite band, Metallica, also was among the first to use multiple angles, in Cunning Stunts, which I believe was released way back in 1998. I seem to remember that five songs were available with different angles, though you couldn't switch angles in the middle of the song.

    I think the main reason that the non-porn film industry isn't taking advantage is this: in the porn-biz, the directors really don't have much/any power, while Hollywood revolves around directors. I'm sure that a lot of directors feel that their conception of the angles to use is the best, and that us lowly viewers couldn't change the angles without ruining their grand artistic vision.

  • how is this "abuse" you stupid fuck?
  • For this guy, $10K is a drop in the bucket. Most of us spend more than this each month just on bandwidth.

  • Which Robert Sewell is that? I had a lecturer, who works for Telstra, named that. I don't know what his opinion on Java was, though. :)
    --

  • I think we're not that far away from one of the TV networks pulling a similar stunt. Big Brother was sort of this idea (the viewers influence the "plot"), but I can see this applied to a miniseries or perhaps a show like ER. At the end of each episode they show a blurb for nbc.com or what not and the voters decide what happens next. I suppose the soaps could do a similar thing, as well.

  • I would guess because it'd be nigh impossible to dig through the flames, crap, and clueless to find the truth or someone with an idea, just like on /.
  • Metallica does not deserve to have a copyright on their songs. See, one of the requirements of copyright is that the content has to be creative.
  • haha that's good. :)
  • slipknot ruled! wow..a blast from the past..funny how that was 6 or so years ago...
  • I think you are right. Now I only wait that one of these guys come up and admit they used a one-click ordering process on their sites doing some embellishments to pre-existing perl scripts as well. Then I would agree and admit that O'Reilly's BountyQuest site works, then only and not one day before.
  • too bad you're too much of a pussy to not post as ac. talk about redundant, you define it.

  • Excellent! (Score:3)

    by h2odragon ( 6908 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:01PM (#375903) Homepage
    ... not only have we in theory at least eliminated a Bad Thing, but we've managed to get the name of the first person to put against the wall when the revolution comes.

    :)

  • That means more people can enjoy the benefit of having a blinking banner ad at every f&$% site they go to.
    --
  • I wouldn't want to be DoubleClick's lawyers right now...
  • Well, at least someone's profiting from ridiculous patents.

  • Great... (Score:3)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:01PM (#375907) Journal
    A web pr0n pioneer gets $10,000? What was I doing? I've been viewing web pr0n since my first dialup account in college (remember Slipknot?). I should have remembered this...

    Dancin Santa

  • A credit to the industry... (Score:3)

    by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:01PM (#375908) Homepage Journal
    Wow! Is there anything pr0n can't do?

    Funny enough, the pr0n industry seems to be way ahead of the curve because there's so much profit to be made with relatively few expenses...

    Small start up costs mean lots of businesses will spring up quickly. Perhaps, Napster should consider distributing music through steganographically-encoded XXX pictures? I'm sure they would have a lot of financial backing...

  • pr0n saves. (Score:3)

    by Wiggin ( 97119 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:03PM (#375909)
    pr0n saves us from Corperate America. how much better can it get?

  • Re:There's proof... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Monsieur Daguerre would have had to have priapism to take that pic, don't you think?
  • A business plan that contains some of the same buzzwords as DoubleClick's patent, and everyone thinks the patent is invalidated already. Get a clue!

  • Re:pr0n saves. (Score:3)

    by goten ( 36521 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:05PM (#375912) Homepage
    and takes half damage.
  • Yeah that was my thought too, this just means that any company who wants can run a banner add buisness, won't this mean price wars with MORE ads running for cheaper prices???? Great now mr. Big companies ad budget can get twice the ads for the same cost. This is one patent I wouldn't mind keeping.
  • Currently, DoubleClick is not enforcing its patent. In November of last year, it reached a settlment with its competitors, 24/7 and L90, and the suit cannot be brought again, at least against those guys. The BountyQuest site says that this settlement and the prior art of XPics' Mr. Shuster will make it very difficult for DoubleClick to enforce its patent in the future.

  • Re:There's proof...and your right (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Alternate angles isn't necessarily a good thing. Due to the way DVD content is laid out, using alternate angles noticeably reduces the maximum bandwidth available to each angle. This means that while alternate angles can be a neat feature, it does degrades the picture quality somewhat. Good video is more of a concern for feature films because, really, who cares if your porn isn't crystal clear and razor sharp?

    Alternate angles also have the annoying habit of choking some of the older standalone DVD players. Again, marginal compatability is something that porn can get away with but film houses generally can't.
  • Don'tcha jus wonder what all dees comments are gonna do to address the real is-sues? Oh course not! Who'd really want to ad dress it?!
    3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!

  • it's not just on the internet. who do you think it is that uses the alternate camera angle feature on dvds? who do you think was the first to accept vhs? the porn industry has been innovating for much longer than microsoft, and on top of that, they're better at it.

  • >I had an idea for a lot of things people have ended up creating
    >and patenting, would that give me the right to sue someone for it,
    >because I was too lazy to capitalize on patenting and copyrights?

    Not if you just had an idea. But if you formulated and *used* that idea - as Schuster apparently did in his defunct advertising service - then yes, you'd have a case against someone who tried to (or did) patent the idea.

    I do agree with you though, I don't think there are many cases where code or implementation of code should be patentable.

    Shaun
  • Did you see the case on the site? Someone makes little pagodas, and is worried about someone else "copying" them. Looks like a pretty typical pagoda to me....
  • I just want to say that BoutyQuest kicks ass. This is just what the patent system needs.

  • What does this have to do with Napster? (Score:3)

    by turbodog42 ( 122173 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:38PM (#375921)
    Well? What do you mean by "bogus copyrights"? Are you saying that Metallica or any creator of content (visual, audible, written, digital or otherwise) somehow doesn't deserve copyright protection?
  • Which just makes me all the more bitter... ;-)
  • "The entire body of computer science can be viewed as nothing more than the development of efficient methods for the storage, transportation, encoding, and rendering of pornography."
  • I scammed thier banners for enough money that I bought a pc with it a few years ago lots of people were ripping them off. Mostly using hidden frames opening up the target url in them. So every page hit would be a banner hit.
  • Really? Name one technology that porn industry is responsible for. I eagerly await news of the porn industry's research lab and its accomplishments.

    The list goes on and on. You're just out of the loop.

    • Dirty-talk steganography ("Ooh" = 1, "Ahh" = 2, "Take me now baby" = 3, etc.)
    • Digital penis telemetry
    • The Pantyum III processor
    • Silicone-based holographic personal data storage implants
    • And, of course, the electric butt
  • more bandwidth was done because the porn industry knew it could fill the pipes.

    Good choice of words

  • It is an early adopter. The only reason that it doesn't lead is because people in the mainstream don't know enough to follow us. The porn industry has been years ahead since the day the day the first version of Mosaic came out.

  • Indeed.
  • Even if you didn't have Visual Studio installed, the Javascript errors are still there. The only difference is that IE will put the errors in a little icon in the lower left hand corner of the browser. Decent sites (porn included) shouldn't have any Javascript errors.

  • Some years ago, I lost my job and moved to Paris because of an exciting job offer I had.
    It consisted of developing the following in java:
    • an online distributed secure payment system
    • a video-broadcasting system using very-low bandwidth but high res-picture
    • a secure auction system.
    After I left this organization, I discovered I had been coding porn sites infrastructures.
    (I actually had no idea about this while I was there.
    Thanks for respecting me, guys!
    anyway, I might have refused the offer, if I had known what it consisted of)
    What I mean is that, as in the case of the French Minitel, only the pr0n-makers could afford to spend that much money in R&D as tat these times they were the oly ones to make money out of their websites.
    So, which new technologies did the pr0n industry bring to the civilized world?
    1. they beta-tested and stabilized e-commerce
    2. they were among the first to put live media online.
    3. they proved one can make money out of their stuff.
    4. and they were also far more delicate with their co-workers like me than others company for which I later contributed to develop a billing-system.
    So, just let them do, they have actually pioneered the digital era.
    --
  • Like giving 10 grand to the anonymous "database guru" who sent in a copy of an old Rdb manual page, after seeing a ./ article. This was to debunk an Oracle patent application on snapshots.

    They don't seem to realize that Oracle bought the rights to Rdb, so they already own this so-called "prior art!"

    DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
  • The reason that porn dvds have more features is not that porn is more innovative than regular movies.

    Regular movies are created for a regular screen in a regular theatre. The dvd doesn't do anything that the screen can't do.

    Porn movies are often shot straight for DVD, so they can put the extra dvd stuff in there.

    With a regular movie there's no real need for multiple angles anyway. I would like to movies as the director intended. Besides, with all the stunts and camera tricks they pull, it wouldn't be practical to shoot from simoutaneous angles.

    Porn is the "real thing". no sleight of hand or anything so extra camera angles are practical.
  • Did porn also pioneer SPAM before anyone else?

  • There's proof... (Score:3)

    by lowe0 ( 136140 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:05PM (#375936) Homepage
    Proof that on the internet, smut drives technology. I derive some humor in the fighters of one of the internet's biggest nuisances, patents, are aided by the industry responsible for another one of its nuisances, the javascript popup.
  • Maybe if enough patents get thrown out because of prior art, the USPTO will actually start looking for prior art before issuing patents...

  • Gotta love those porn guys... (Score:5)

    by wrinkledshirt ( 228541 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:08PM (#375940) Homepage

    You know, seriously, part of me wonders just how much innovation over the internet has come as a direct result of the demands of the porn industry. I mean, where else is personal security being violated more of an embarassment? Where else are video demands as high? I remember when our government office was looking at having some of their meetings broadcast live over the internet, and were wondering if it was possible, and I wanted to say, "Sure! Heh heh, just check out this site over here..."

  • It just goes to show that pr0n is driving many industries.

    they've been at the forefront of DVD, wireless internet, etc. pushing the envelope on all of them.

    what a great win, especially against doubleclick.

  • Patent NOT busted (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:10PM (#375943)
    Get your headline right. BountyQuest has identified what it thinks is prior art. As the article states, the patent stands until either a court or the USPTO invalidates it. It appears that geeks know of the law what lawyers know of code.
  • We got a 'Cirque de Soleil' DVD for xMas that has the multiple angles feature. First time I'd seen this actually used. Really neat.

    In this case the alternate angles were only for short durations (during some of the acts like the woman balancing on one hand for 20 minutes). There was a little flashing icon in the corner to tell you that the scene had miltiple angles. Very neat.

    I'd love to see this used for more stuff. Hell, I might even have to talk the wife into a couple porn DVDs just to check this out. ;-)

    ---

  • It was "choose your own adventure". I sometimes read those books using left hand fingers as placeholders, and several bookmarks when the "stack" got too deep. I didn't know it then, but that was probably my first depth-first search algorithm...

    --

  • Yep, I've heard the same comments made about the home movie/VHS industry. The porn guys blaze the trail and push the envelope with new distribution channels for their wares.

    My least favorite example of porn exploitation of a new technology: javascript

    ---

  • Re:Captain Obvious Rides Again (Score:3)

    by TechLawyer ( 182030 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:44PM (#375951)
    This is the registration-based approach to patenting used in, e.g., Singapore. In Singapore, you just file, get a patent automatically, and fight out validity in court. There is no presumption of validity of such patents. This is good for the little guy, because there is no time-consuming examination (so less cost) and quick publication/issue. This also sucks for the little guy, since his/her patent doesn't have any presumption of validity, and M$ will laugh when he/she tries to assert it. This also sucks for the little guy when M$ or whoever files a deluge of apps at once, and asserts them against the little guy in an attempt to coerce a license fee out of him/her.
  • I've read claims that pr0n is actually one of the driving areas in both development and acceptance of new technology. You point out how the porn sites are pioneering ad strategies, streaming media technologies, etc., but it goes back much farther than that.

    One of the main reasons that VCRs became such a common household item in the 80s was that all the new Video Rental Huts [1] had that famous "back room", with titles like "Debbie Does Dallas" and "Penthouse's Playmate of the Year Exposed." That trend was a big part of why triple X theatres largely went out of business in most cities at around the same time, and the exact same trend is also driving a lot of DVD player growth today.

    People don't like to admit it in public, but the numbers don't lie -- this stuff is a big part of what drives the growth of these things. Without porn, where would we be now?

    I'd bet that at least some of us may not have been born at all... ;)

    [1] The joke there being a la "Akbar & Jeff's Video Hutt", with our "children's section" featuring Animal Farm. This is much funnier if you're familiar with Matt Groening's Life in Hell [crimsonbird.com] comics... Heh heh heh...



  • Porn industry got us faster compression and overall more bandwidth.

    Faster compression was done so that the end user would not have to sit around and wait so long for the download.

    more bandwidth was done because the porn industry knew it could fill the pipes.

    Porn industry is way ahead the the film industry when it comes to DVD. They are currently writing storyline that have multiple viewing angle and story lines. Film industry is not even trying this yet (on dvd). Imagin watching your favorite porno and getting the shot from 5 different views

    ONEPOINT

    spambait e-mail
    my web site artistcorner.tv hip-hop news
    please help me make it better
  • Okay, the doubleclick thing is cool and all and I'm glad to see them get thier asses stomped, but I had *never* seen this BountyQuest thing before. That is just about as cool as can be.

    Of course, finding this site means that I'm not going to get any more work done this afternoon... Going to be looking for bounties, and then ill quit my job and then i'll have a bevy of prostitutes to cater to my every whim.
    Yep, all part of my master plan.


    Brant

  • Patented Comments (Score:3)

    by deran9ed ( 300694 ) on Thursday March 08, 2001 @01:16PM (#375965) Homepage

    At this point, it is difficult to assess the exact impact that Shuster's submission will have on the online advertising world.
    At this point what kind of an impact will people expect. Not to be sound so "anti" anything, what I will say is, he should have done something long ago instead of waiting 6+ years while DoubleClick [doubleclick.net] built a niche in the market for this service

    The DoubleClick patent, which makes exceptionally broad claims regarding the delivery, targeting and measuring of advertising over the Internet, touched off a wave of suits and counter suits between DoubleClick and ad serving rivals 24/7 and L90.
    Can someone explain to me how people are patenting free words and actions of a computer language. I don't wanna hear about "Its a nice idea" the underlying factor is, it isn't really an invention, no one physically owns code, why doesn't someone rant and sue for using their code, say Larry Wall sue DoubleClick for using Perl without his prior consent. Sure Larry Released it free, and I can theorize if he knew it would be used by "for profit" companies he would have probably released a professional copy.

    Still, Shuster's prior art points to possible problems with the validity of the DoubleClick patent. But given that the DoubleClick lawsuits are currently dormant, is the issue dead?
    Why cant this be simple such as a "move your feet lose your seat" solution. Taxpayers spend millions on this bs.
    The existence of this prior art, together with the November settlement between DoubleClick, and rivals 24/7 and L90, could seriously impede DoubleClick's ability to assert the patent against new entrants into the online advertising realm. This could have a direct benefit for Shuster himself, who is attempting a re-entry into the online advertising field.
    Who says this is going to hinder anything, a patent is a patent. I had an idea for a lot of things people have ended up creating and patenting, would that give me the right to sue someone for it, because I was too lazy to capitalize on patenting and copyrights?
    Patent Pending [antioffline.com]
  • Fry: Well, thanks to the Internet I'm now bored with sex.

    This bounty has little to do with the real legal world though. Only time will tell if the patent is revoked.

    =-=-=-=-=

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