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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..."

6 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. What is the patent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Anyone know what exactly they're patenting? I'm sure someone else had invented the concept of identifying a file by its hash before them.

  2. Can someone clarify... by DownWithTheMan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "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." The interdiction method they speak of... Is it essentially a DoS on the p2p networks? If so, that's a lot of crow the RIAA is going to have to force down if they lose their lawsuits...

  3. Re:New business model, buy patents and sue. by LnxAddct · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But this is could be very bad for us. They essentially patented using hashes for file identification. This is used everywhere, if they win we lose, and if they lose we lose, nothing to be happy about here. I mean rsync heavily relies on hashes, as well as a number of other applications.
    Regards,
    Steve

  4. It's a win-win scenario if it goes to trial. by argent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Altnet wins: RIAA loses. That's a win, and there's the potential of a double-win, if the IP Police respond by trying to put a finger-guard on the patent buzzsaw.

    Altnet loses: legal precedents that blunt the software patent buzzsaw are all to the good.

    The worst-case scenario is Altnet and tha RIAA coming to a settlement.

  5. Re:Who to support? by gcaseye6677 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Exactly. This couldn't have happened to a more deserving group of people. You know what they say, those who live by the sword die by the sword.

  6. Very dangerous if Patent has teeth by Sanity · · Score: 3, Interesting
    This ridiculously overbroad patent claims to cover the obvious process of requesting a file over a network. Prior art on this dates back at least 15 years

    If this patent is demonstrated to be enforceable (it shouldn't be based on the above - but who knows), then it will effectively give Altnet the (legal, not moral) right to sue almost any P2P network out there, since they all rely on this obivous technique.

    Basically it looks like their strategy would be to use this patent to force every other P2P network to install the DRM technology they have been working on.

    Attacking the RIAA seems more like a stunt than a real strategy, but hopefully the RIAA has the resources to invalidate this patent, if they do, then they will be doing the world of P2P a big favor.