RIAA Faces Patent Infringement Charges

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

14 September 2004

Peer-to-peer (P2P) service provider, Altnet and its parent company Brilliant Digital Entertainment which own the Kazaa file sharing service have turned the tables on the Recording Industry Association of America, alleging that the industry body has infringed on patented technology owned by the firms.

In a suit filed in California last week, Altnet argued that the RIAA, by putting out bogus and corrupted media files on P2P networks in order to discourage illegal file sharing, has breached a 2002 patent owned by the company which permits the unique naming of files in the context of file sharing networks.

In a statement, the service provider announced that:

"Altnet alleges this has inhibited the growth of P2P for legitimate file sharing that benefits copyright holders, which Altnet advocates, and thereby has injured its business."

Altnet president, Lee Jaffe went on to claim that the RIAA 'spoofs' up to 200 million songs per month, observing that:

"That adds up to a lot of instances of patent violation. The defendants have had the opportunity to work closely with us to innovate and improve the overall content experience for file sharers, yet they choose to send users damaged files that erode relationships between artists, bands, and their fans."

The RIAA has yet to issue a detailed response to the claims, but denies that it has infringed Altnet's patent.

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