This is madness

[pixel_monkey]

An ex-coworker of mine told me this morning that my previous company just settled a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed by VPS, LLC for some outrageous patent claim.

Apparently, this VPS, LLC can sue anyone and get millions. They PATENTED the online display of images for sales purposes. So ANYONE that sells images online, they can't, so every company that does that, INCLUDING photographers, will get sued. Watch out.

http://digital2noise.blogspot.com/20...y-robbery.html

[Swampy]

WOW....Thanks for that info, PM! Reminds me of the company that 'invented' the JPEG and how they wanted to charge a licensing fee for it.

[pixel_monkey]

How they could patent something like that just blew my mind. I'm sure they didn't invent it. Now I can't even use some HTML codes to put up a picture of my old equipments that I want to sell on my website.

I'm surprised Kodak and HP settled with them. It's over for the small guys. I'm sure Getty and Corbis are their list...I hope they'd stand up to them.

[samel]

Reminds me of the company that 'invented' the JPEG and how they wanted to charge a licensing fee for it.

jpeg stands for "joint photographic experts group". someone developed the compression algorithm used for ".jpg"-files. technically, someone could very well issue a licensing fee for that. but patenting the act of selling images on the internet sounds very far fetched.