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Altnet Sues Record Industry Over File Hash Patents

Posted by michael on from the patent-nonsense dept.

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..."

5 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. New business model, buy patents and sue. by garcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    Altnet and Brilliant Digital Entertainment are joint venture partners with Sharman Networks, the Australian company that owns the Kazaa software.

    So a network that is well known for trading files that probably shouldn't be traded for free buys a patent and tries to sell the services to a group that wants nothing to do with P2P. Then when the group that wants nothing to do with them ignores them they turn around and sue them. Sounds like another company that has been in tech-news recently.

    1. Re:New business model, buy patents and sue. by canajin56 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      At first I wanted to diagree, as the article says it is a patent on hashing files on peer to peer networks. However, Halo1 was kind enough to track down the patent in question and it shows that the patent, is, in fact, on hashing in general. In fact, it would most likely apply to a simple hash table. They basically define the concept of the function being deterministic, and collision resistant, but in lawyer speak.

      The run down on what they are patenting is, creating a unique identifier for any file, that is signifigantly smaller than the file, and where there is low probability of being able to find a collision. This identifier is only based on the data, not the file name or creation date. And it can be used to determine if one has the file, simply by comparing it to a list of known identifiers. Sounds an awful lot like a general description of any hashing scheme.

      However, the good news is that was filed in October 1997. I'm pretty sure that somebody thought of using hashes to keep track of files, whther over a network or locally, well before 1997.

      Of course, many of these silly patent problems would be no problem to beat in court. However, the system doesn't work that way, and these people could make a lot of money by settling with people who can't afford a lawyer. The good news is they went after the RIAA, who has lots of money and lawyers. Expect a quick defeat and patent invalidation.

      --
      ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
  2. Re:If only both of the could lose... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They will, only the lawyers will be the real winners.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  3. Re:Actually, this is an old business model. by phearlez · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why do the same clowns who defend CEO pay by saying "That's the salary required to attract qualified candidates!" suddenly forget that standard when we talk about making civil service jobs competitive with the private sector?

    --
    Bad management trumps ideology - Show the world you want better leadership. http://www.timefornewmanagement.com
  4. Is it really hypocrisy? by jackrd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is it really hypocritical to be glad to see something like this happen?

    It seems like making use of unjust laws is one of the best ways to bring to light their injustice. Think about the laws against blacks riding in the front of the bus. I'm sure many people were happy to hear about the first black person to get arrested for riding in the front a bus. They weren't happy because that person was in jail, but happy because it was a step in the direction of exposing the unjust law that jailed them.

    I'm not "rooting for altnet" nor am I "on the side of the RIAA." Things just aren't that simple. But I'm happy that this happened, I hope the patent gets tossed out, and I hope (and I know this is stretching things) that maybe it's another step in the direction of industry (and the public) realizing that the patenting system as it is now is flawed.

    And I'll consider any challenge to the RIAA's current behaviour a move in the right direction; even if I think that challenge is silly and hope that it gets tossed out. Maybe it'll inspire more, and more appropriate, challenges in the future.