🚀 go-pugleaf

On 9/21/2010 10:50 AM, Joel Koltner wrote:
> "SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
> news:4c981133$0$1636$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net...
>> There is no lawsuit. There is not going to be any class action
>> lawsuit. This is a law firm trying to see if there is any money to be
>> made in a settlement. There isn't. No one takes them seriously. Not
>> iBiquity. Not BMW. No one. Well perhaps are favorite anti-HD troll
>> takes them seriously.
>
> You're probably right about all this, although it'll still be
> interesting to see if it goes anywhere at all or just immediately
> fizzles here.

A successful class action lawsuit requires thousands, or tens of 
thousands members of the class. You don't have that here. The law firm 
floated a trial balloon, but they were probably misled by our favorite 
troll.

>> No individual can invest in iBiquity as they are not a public company.
>
> Ah, good point -- I had forgotten that.
>
> I suppose then it only matters for, e.g., a radio station owner you're
> trying to decide whether or not it's worth the $$$ to purchase HD radio
> transmitters and start paying iBiquity royalties for using them.

The royalties are not large, and were recently reduced even more. The 
transmitters are a one-time expense, though of course they cost money to 
operate in terms of electricity. It's actually a testament to the 
foresight of station owners that so many were willing to move to HD even 
before the number of receivers that were deployed justified it. But a 
lot of the stations that added HD are the bigger and highly profitable 
stations, for which the cost of HD is really lost in the noise of their 
operating budgets. It's the smaller, lower power, local stations that 
now need to move to HD.

>> Nor did the investors (mainly large station owners) expect any return
>> beyond the deployment of the HD system. It's likely that iBiquity will
>> eventually become part of a larger technology licensing company.
>
> They might become another Rambus then? -- HD radio itself will tend to
> go away, but iBiquity will stick around, taking in royalties eternally? :-)

Precisely. Rambus is who I was thinking of too. iBiquity right now is 
mostly doing marketing, and the need for that will eventually end as HD 
Radio becomes mainstream. After that you just need an organization to 
manage the royalties.

>> We're moving the wrong way on that front. No evidence that 4G is going
>> to solve it either.
>
> Agreed, it'll be awhile.

It's more likely that people will just continue what they're doing 
now--plugging in their iPod with locally stored music into their 
vehicle, or storing the music on a local hard disk in the car, or on USB 
sticks or SD cards. Wireless data coverage is fine when you're in a 
city, but doesn't work once you're out of urban areas. This summer we 
listened to a 42 CD book (Pillars of the Earth) while driving across 
Nevada, Utah, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, 
Idaho, Oregon, and California, out of touch with 2G or 3G wireless 
service for most of the trip. The 42 CDs were stored (along with about 
25 more books) on a USB stick that plugged into my receiver. The kids 
had their music players and DSi and DVD player.