An interesting observation noted by Keeping the Public in Public Radio, who referenced this post to a thread on a broadcast-related e-mail listserve about the possibilities of zinging iBiquity Digital Corporation with legal action, including the potential of bringing the company down as a result, written by someone who’s been following the potential litigation effort more closely than I:
Whether any of us believes there’s a chance the victims will win, the litigation will cost a fortune. The lawyers are looking for victims and witnesses. Since I’ve probably done more [HD reception] field testing than anyone…I’ve been asked to participate either as a witness or a complainant….
I haven’t decided if I’ll participate or wait for a subpoena. If they use my market as a test they’ll probably have an air tight case. IBUZ here is an absolute disaster. HD-2 is useful only as an STL to feed a translator….As it stands, IBUZ can be inoperative for weeks at a time on stations run by the industry’s largest corporations.
There’s a lot of money to be made here. I just hope I can get my lawyer correspondence course finished in time to get some of it. I’ll bet it’ll be in litigation as long as the BP lawsuits will.
Time, in the legal sense, is on the side of HD critics – the longer any potential litigation plays out, especially if it ultimately targets iBiquity, the more likely the company will drown in the cost of defending itself.
Finally, an addendum to my previous post: some have e-mailed to chide that I neglected to remark that iBiquity, among all else, is an intellectual property company, of which HD Radio is its primary product, and it (reportedly) holds hundreds of patents, of which only some are related to HD Radio.
Other iBiquity IP (such as audio codecs) are licensed out to other non-terrestrial broadcast users (such as XM/Sirius) and wireless phone service providers.
With that said, I suspect the revenue stream from these areas is small relative to the company’s overall income and corporate orientation (which nobody really knows), and is surely not enough to keep the company afloat. Hey iBiquity: open your books and prove me wrong.
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