Nearing Case Omega’s Execution

[Tue Feb 05 22:39:03 +0000 2013] (x809) @nerdist HELP! Podcast listeners may lose your fave shows! Patent Troll is threatening PODCASTERS. Please spread, RT, @reddit: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/02/podcasting-community-faces-patent-troll-threat-eff-wants-help

It is not a good thing when I see an alert like this pop up from podcasting entrepreneur Chris Hardwick. Leo Laporte mentioned the same thing a few weeks ago. Apparently a patent troll is preparing to take on some podcasters with large audiences to the cleaners.

There always exists the threat of a patent troll, a very special form of litigant, suing you. Even if you are in the right, the thought of coping with the realities of the federal legal system for patent lawsuits is still an economic nightmare. In the Linux realm, the desire has been to move forward rather than to be paralyzed by fear of lawsuits whether righteous or not.

Leo Laporte has already stated that if the suits by the non-practicing entity Personal Audio against shows like the Adam Carolla Show and HowStuffWorks end up with Personal Audio winning in terms of patent infringement, it will be considered “game over” for the TWiT network as they will be forced by economic circumstances to shut down. From our perspective here, there would be no question of the need to shut down. We have operated without regular funding for far too long which leaves us with little resilience.

Case Omega remains the action plan for translating LISTen: An LISNews.org Program away from being an Internet-based program to more conventional means of distribution. Taking a Creative Commons license in concert with the ability to record radio airchecks allows us one means of distribution using perhaps more old-fashioned tactics. Our 2011 and 2012 drills on New Year’s Eve showed that on the production side we could carry such out.

We do not have a nest egg to sit on to be ready for adverse court decisions in a patent situation like this. With LISNews currently residing at ibiblio, I remain at a loss for good statistics to see where listeners are so that I can even begin to sound out suitable broadcasters for price quotes. The tools are there to react even if the patent trolling relative to podcasting itself goes in a bad direction. Provided funds could be raised, a change in manifestation can be executed within 30 days at a minimum.

Librarians are familiar with the notion of works having multiple manifestations. Since the launching of the Arab Spring, we have endeavored in production to ensure that we were not necessarily tied to any specific form of manifestation when it comes to producing works. As 2013 continues we may well have to flex the boundaries of information science as we seek support in continuing to provide service.


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Nearing Case Omega’s Execution by Stephen Michael Kellat is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at http://archive.org/details/caseomega-execution.