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Australian Firm Targets Apple and Google Cloud Music Services

Posted by Unknown on from the can-i-patent-urls dept.

littlekorea writes "The online music services of Apple and Google are likely to be challenged by a Sydney-based company that has been granted three new patents around file hashing and deduplication. The patents are being managed by Kevin Bermeister, of Altnet/Kazaa fame, who believes that the technology behind P2P music services has been commercialized by the music industry without license." In semi-related patent troll news, Google is being sued over using interactive panoramic images in Streetview. Because QuickTime VR didn't exist years before the patent was filed.

16 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Sigh, how did I know this was a patent troll by bruce_the_moose · · Score: 4, Interesting

    just by reading the title? I hoped "Australian Firm Targets Apple and Google" meant they were going to, oh, I don't know, produce a product and compete? But, no, targeting can only mean one thing any more: lawsuits.

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    To reduce crime, make fewer things against the law.
  2. Something has got to give. by pablo_max · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Seriously, this is getting to be freaking ridiculous. No one is allowed to do anything. No one can have any service because some fuck tard has a patent for some idea which he either was never able to implement or bought from some other fuck tard who was not able to implement it.
    This system is completely broken. Something has got to give.

    1. Re:Something has got to give. by Wovel · · Score: 3, Funny

      I have a trademark on the phrase fuck tard used in any online communication. Please visit imatroll.com to pay your license fee.

    2. Re:Something has got to give. by neoform · · Score: 1

      >No one is allowed to do anything.

      Now you're catching on... massive corporations will own the rights to everything, then will form a conglomerate (or simply merge), then the rich will control your every move.

      End game.

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      MABASPLOOM!
    3. Re:Something has got to give. by StripedCow · · Score: 1

      America used to be the land of the free, but right now I guess we all better move to Europe!

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      If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
    4. Re:Something has got to give. by pablo_max · · Score: 1

      To be fair. I have done this already. My wife and I moved to Germany, thought not due to the patent system, but rather to give our children a better education.

  3. Getting completely ridiculous by ClaraBow · · Score: 2

    I don't think any company can introduce a new service or product without being hit with a lawsuit! The only winners here are the lawyers who are makings lots of money at the expensive of the consumer as companies just pass on the costs. Seriously, we need some reforms -- now!

    1. Re:Getting completely ridiculous by Rich0 · · Score: 2

      Well, avoiding the US market isn't exactly a smart move - it is a pretty huge segment of the profits considering the buying power people have, plus the cultural power the US exerts over the rest of the world. Do you think that iPhones would be as fashionable in Denmark if some famous actor in the US didn't use it?

      Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that the rest of the world just gets up every morning and reads People magazine to tell them how to think. However, a dollar invested promoting a product in the US gains a lot of mindshare among people that have money to spend.

      All that said, agree totally that the US legal system is in need of MASSIVE reform. It seems like half our economy is lawyers and finance - two industries that don't actually create anything of real value. Sure, R&D is a "service" and isn't terribly tangible, but the fact is that mankind as a whole benefits incrementally when somebody comes up with a new kind of transistor, or even a new kind of toothpaste.

  4. Google May Not Be Effected by DuckFOO · · Score: 2

    I recently read an article on Ars about this and the thought there is that Google will not be doing deduplication in order to avoid lawsuits. Link: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/are-google-music-and-amazon-cloud-player-illegal.ars

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    "Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so."
    Bertrand Russell.
  5. Too funny ... by gstoddart · · Score: 1

    The patents are being managed by Kevin Bermeister, of Altnet/Kazaa fame, who believes that the technology behind P2P music services has been commercialized by the music industry without license.

    Oh god, that's just hilarious. I so want to see someone from Kazaa screwing over the music industry based on not properly licensing stuff.

    But, really, de-duplification has been commercial use for some number of years ... and identifying files by hashes and the like is hardly new ... so I think from what I've seen in TFS, these sound like stupid patents.

    If we could cause pain to the music industry and Microsoft, Oracle, and SCO out of this ... I think it would be great. Can someone get on that?

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    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:Too funny ... by king+neckbeard · · Score: 1

      Actually, the big labels are opposing 'music lockers', and they aren't the targets of this lawsuit. Nailing the music industry for patent infringement is difficult, given that they've resisted just about every relevant technological advance in the last century.

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      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    2. Re:Too funny ... by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Nailing the music industry for patent infringement is difficult, given that they've resisted just about every relevant technological advance in the last century.

      Except the ones that give them control over what we do ... DRM, Root Kits, CDs which aren't conformant to the specs, IPs as personally identifiable information, co-opting of the legal system ...

      They just refuse to allow any technology which allows us to make decisions.

      Quite frankly, at this point, even if they're not involved in this litigation, I'd be in favor of anything which just sorta side-swiped them for good measure to give them a friendly "screw you" from the rest of us.

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      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:Too funny ... by king+neckbeard · · Score: 1

      They have taken to DRM fairly quickly, but I don't think frivlous lawsuits really count as a technological advances. But as I said, the record labels are fighting Google's services themselves. Kazaa and the RIAA are on the same side of this issue in being anti-innovator.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    4. Re:Too funny ... by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Kazaa and the RIAA are on the same side of this issue in being anti-innovator.

      Wow, did someone tear a rift in space-time?

      The enemy of my enemy is apparently still a patent troll and an asshat.

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      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  6. Hell yeah! About time the "innovators" got paid! by Kamiza+Ikioi · · Score: 1

    Yes, but it's an ingenius patent troll! Now the pirates get to sit back and make bank on all the companies who basically road in on the backs of pirates, who quite honestly DID invent the first "cloud" with P2P. I wish we had more trolls like that. It's kind of a load of crap that some smart kids in school make incredible technology, then get crushed by the likes of the RIAA, only to have some big shot company stroll along, throw money at the record labels, and do basically the same thing without actually innovating... and it's not like these companies came along and at least bought the technology. No, they waited for the original creators to get sued into oblivion, and then appeared out of nowhere like they're Jesus-F*cking-Christ of the Cloud.

    Ok, I way over stated that. But I am laughing my ass off that at least someone is getting their just rewards and throwing punches in the other direction.

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    I8-D
  7. RTFA - Kazaa.com by Kamiza+Ikioi · · Score: 1

    Kazaa is the competing service, now Kazaa.com, which they still run. You'd know that if you read the article, saw that Kazaa is still operational as a legitimate business, and is a competing service, and is the company the patents are based on. It was worth the hit to my Karma to make a second post to the same thread to make a completely separate point.

    Then I read your sig and it all made sense why you wouldn't get past the title, fanboy blindness. Too bad none of your Mod's bothered to read the article either.

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    I8-D