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Altnet Sues Record Industry Over File Hash Patents
robochan writes "In a charming twist of fate, CNET is reporting that Altnet, a company that sells music and other digital goods through file-swapping services, is suing the RIAA for alleged patent infringement. Altnet CEO Kevin Bermeister stated, 'We cannot stand by and allow them to erode our business opportunity by the wholesale infringement of our rights.' Goodness, that sounds all too familiar..."
Altnet, a company that sells music and other digital goods through file-swapping services, sued the Recording Industry Association of America on Wednesday for alleged patent infringement.
The company, a subsidiary of Brilliant Digital Entertainment, contends that the RIAA has been infringing on one of its patents in the course of copyright enforcement efforts inside peer-to-peer networks. Overpeer, a copyright company owned by Loudeye, and MediaDefender, also are named in the lawsuit.
"We've exhausted every means of trying to work with these defendants and those they represent to patiently encourage and positively develop the P2P distribution channel," said Altnet Chief Executive Officer Kevin Bermeister in a statement. "We cannot stand by and allow them to erode our business opportunity by the wholesale infringement of our rights."
He added, "Think about your breathing."
The patent infringement suit comes as one of the sideshows in an ongoing legal battle over peer-to-peer networks that has led to piracy charges against technology companies and antitrust claims against record companies, and that now appears to be headed ultimately to Congress for resolution.
Altnet and Brilliant Digital Entertainment are joint venture partners with Sharman Networks, the Australian company that owns the Kazaa software. The company has been trying for several years to persuade record labels and music studios to allow Altnet to sell authorized versions of their products through the Kazaa file-swapping network.
The big entertainment companies have unanimously said no, however. They've lost recent court battles that aimed to put companies like Sharman out of business, but are now seeking legislation that would revive their claims against file-swapping ventures.
Altnet has also been seeking other funding sources and ways to strike back at the record labels' efforts to undermine peer-to-peer networks.
In the summer of 2003, it announced that it had purchased patent rights to the process of identifying files on a peer-to-peer network using a "hash," or digital fingerprint based on the contents of the file.
Initially, Bermeister indicated the company would approach other file-swapping companies to sign them up for licenses. That proved controversial, but Altnet did send cease-and-desist letters last November to nine companies engaged in businesses related to peer-to-peer networks.
Some of these, such as data collection company Big Champagne, said they weren't using any technology that would infringe on the Altnet patent. An attorney for Altnet said the disputes with most of the nine had been resolved.
Altnet's lawsuit says that antipiracy companies Overpeer and MediaDefender are still on the hook, however. Overpeer is a "spoofing" company that posts millions of false or corrupted files on networks such as Kazaa, trying to make real files harder to find. Media Defender uses "interdiction" techniques, which essentially clog networks with requests that block real download efforts.
Both of these services use unauthorized versions of Kazaa and the underlying FastTrack peer-to-peer technology, and so are using Altnet's patent without permission,
There is also historical info on this being licensed to Sharman Networks.
Here is the first claim of the patent:
Donate free food here
it's an easy misconception that patents are "bad"
It's an easy misconception that the anti-software-patent sentiment is based on the idea that patents are bad. The problem isn't that patents are bad, or that people are taking advantage of the system, it's that the system is currently misbalanced:
1. Patents last too long. This is a general problem with IP law these days.
2. Patents are too easy to get. That is a particular problem with software. The nature of software in particular is such that any non-trivial program involves thousands of processes, any of which can be patented, and it's more-or-less impossible for a developer to even know if he's infringing when people can patent things like using the "tab" key to move between fields in a form.
In the end, the problem is a broken system that doesn't need to be broken.
This is a patent on identifying files by their hash. Checking Google, I see Lamport using cryptographic checksums (which are hashes used to identify files) in 1981. +20 years = 2001. The patent's either invalid, or it isn't as simple as identifying files by a hash.
I'm sure you're all familiar with the arguments against software patents. But maybe you're not aware that while the US Constitution allows Congress to issue patents, it doesn't actually require it to do so. Patents could be eliminated tomorrow if we could get the votes in Congress to repeal the laws that authorize patents.
Patents are authorized in the same clause of the Constitution that authorizes copyrights. I discuss this, and what you can do to fix things, in Change the Law. The discussion there is about copyright, but everything I say applies equally to patents.
If you feel as I do that more people need to read my article, you can help by linking to it from your website, weblog, or from other message boards.
Thank you for your attention.
-- Mike
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I looked up the patent examiner pay grades, a person with a 4yr degree and 2 years of professional experience will start out at about $50k... not a whole lot, but not too bad.
Plus it's a job with the federal gov, so the benefits are good and your job security is great.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.