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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..."
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.
Is a dish best served cold..
What goes around, comes around..
Oh to hell with this, Lets just get out some pitch forks and torches!
"It's not stealing if you don't get caught!"
that patents are good now? today is thursday, so i'm not sure which way i'm supposed to go on that ...
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Patents - Bad.
But the recording industry also Bad.
Who do we support in this discussion?
both of them could lose...
At least someone is trying to make the RIAA feel the same way that a 14 year old kid does when he/she gets served with a subpoena.
gShares.net
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artlu.net
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,
This is an outrage! The RIAA is a great group of do-gooders and this company decides to sue them for patent infringement!? This patent system is getting out of ha...oh wait.
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.
I don't think this is a matter of "buy patents then make money" as some may argue. They had their p2p network, and the RIAA was flooding them with bogus files to trick users. They purchased a technology that complimented their needs (e.g. weeding out the fake files and helping people find legit files), and now they're pulling the old "thou shalt not reverse engineer" argument.
If we replaced "Altnet" with "Microsoft" or another /. target, I imagine this discussion would get quite angry. I imagine we'll have a lot of "way to go!" comments this time around- we're all hypocrites!
"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...
Our IPR overloads can sue each other to oblivion for all I care. Maybe we are hypocrites, but when someone uses unpopular law X to attack evil corporation Y, well... one can't help but be amused.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Then Altnet could use the DMCA against the RIAA.
Now that would REAL sweet revenge.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
They will, only the lawyers will be the real winners.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
There is also historical info on this being licensed to Sharman Networks.
the problem is that we are granting patents on all sorts of ideas that have loads of prior arts. Until we up the pay in the patent office and address the real problems these will continue.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Patents are really screwing up the world.
But wait... the music industry is a big overgrown evil empire.
Who's side should I be on... let's see... "the enemy of my enemy..."
Wait... I know:
I blame Microsoft!
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
You wake up to find a bloodied hard drive under the covers.
You seem to be getting a lot of traffic from fbi_d00d.
That ain't the Publisher's Clearinghouse van in front of your house.
Lately the only music files you can find have names like You'reNextGeekBoy.mp3.
You try to download Send Lawyers, Guns and Money but all you get is I Fought the Law and the Law Won.
Amazon.com recommends you purchase an attorney to go along with the 100 GB hard drive you just ordered.
Maybe mp3.riaa.com wasn't really an anonymous server after all?
Metallica and Court TV are both camped out in your driveway.
Mystika
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.
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.
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.