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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!
both of them could lose...
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.
"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...
They will, only the lawyers will be the real winners.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
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
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
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.