Acacia Media Technologies Group, part of Acacia Research Corporation, has found a new licensee for it patent claim on transmitting media over the web: Playboy.com.
Acacia acquires patents based on broad definitions – and then pursues companies using technologies in similar areas. The company claims to own the patents relating to transmitting compressed video and audio online – a fairly basic component of the internet these days. Acacia don’t actually provide a product for streaming media, or a service – they just claim the patent and will license the right to you.
Playboy.com have been granted the 118th license to use streaming technology – analysts estimate that Acacia are looking to take about 1 or 2% of the income that licensees make from streaming.
The company had recently started action on 39 “adult entertainment” sites, and it seems these businesses seem to be their preferred targets rather than, say, Micorsoft, RealNetworks or Apple. Their reasoning is that content providers have billing systems in place with consumers and so it’s an easier revenue stream to tap into.
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Fraser Lovatt
Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?
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