When Intellectual Property Laws Violate Intellectual Property
by Thomas R. Gervasi
A lawsuit heating up soon could have serious implications for podcasting as we know it.
The plaintiff in the suit is a company called Personal Audio, LLC, based in Beumont, TX. They have quickly gained a reputation for being “patent trolls”. According to an article at Tech Dirt, the suit filed January 2013 in the East Texas U.S. District Court names three of top-rated podcasts on iTunes, including Adam Carolla’s outfit ACE Broadcasting, Togi Entertainment, and HowStuffWorks.
In addition, Personal Audio has also sent threatening letters to several other prominent podcasters (including Majority Report’s Sam Seder).
Personal Audio alleges a violation of patent 8,112,504 and they are essentially claiming the entire concept of podcasting is exclusively its intellectual property, (including generic attributes of podcasting like “episodes in a serialized sequence”).
The reason this has the podcasting world concerned is due to Personal Audio scoring a major victory in 2011, when it received a favorable ruling against Apple for $8 million, in violation of its patent of “playlists”.
Regardless of the outcome, this ridiculous lawsuit highlights a need to reform Intellectual Property law. The very purpose of IP law, and all law for that matter, is to protect the rights of individuals, including their property rights. With Personal Audio’s victory against Apple and now it’s harassment of the entire podcasting industry, we clearly have a situation in which the law is not only failing to protect Adam Carolla’s rights and the rights of other individuals, but in fact it is helping others attempt legal theft.
It leaves the entire industry of podcasting in a precarious position.
The fact that the patent in question was not filed until March 4th, 2009 and Adam Carolla’s first podcast was broadcasted February 23rd 2009 highlights the frivolous nature of the lawsuit. Never mind that podcasting itself has been around for well over a decade (its huge rise in popularity noted in an article by the Guardian in 2004).
To fight back against the lawsuit, Carolla recently launched a fundraising campaign called #TrollHunter to help fund the legal defense against Personal Audio. He also has had others in his corner throughout this long ordeal, including the San Francisco-based EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). EFF filed a challenge to the lawsuit last October which is also still in the process of being resolved. Personal Audio has responded to EFF’s involvement through ugly legal tactics, including last month in an attempt to force EFF to disclose its private donors.
As Frédéric Bastiat said in his classic essay ‘The Law’:
“The law perverted! The law—and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation—the law, I say, not only diverted from its proper direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law become the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law guilty of that very iniquity which it was its mission to punish!”
Translation: When the government acts contrary to the purpose of protecting property and actually becomes an agent of theft, it’s clearly time for the law to be reformed.
Make sure to check out TLR’s ‘The Freedom Report’ podcast and the Adam Carolla Show!
(Important: Please abstain from listening to “episodes in a serialized sequence” per patent 8,112,504).
If you would like to contact Personal Audio and ask them questions on their lawsuits, their address, email, and phone number is as follows:
Address:
550 Fannin Street
Suite 1313
Beaumont, Texas 77701
E-mail: info@personalaudio.net
Phone: (409) 768-0009
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