Spotify Sued For Patent Infringement 151
Posted
by
timothy
from the just-a-hazing-ritual-nowadays dept.
from the just-a-hazing-ritual-nowadays dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Celebrated online music player Spotify just entered the US market a few weeks ago, and already it's being sued for patent infringement. Welcome to America! The patent in question is a very very broad patent on distribution of music in a digital form, which basically describes how anyone would ever distribute digital music. The company suing, PacketVideo, has no competing product. It just wants money from the company that actually innovated."
Nice Intro to Software Patent Issue (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, this is for DRM protected music... (Score:5, Informative)
Reading Claim 1, of which all the others are dependent, this is for the distribution of music using a user-specific DRM system. Also, the claim is incredibly long which != broad BTW. Remember, do one thing differently and you're golden. Reading the claim and with such specific nuggets like the music having to include a "core" that includes "at least one object identification code, object structure information, a consumer code and an encryption table", and at least one "layer" around the core containing "the actual music information" etc and I wonder if anyone would actually do it that way anyway. That was probably the way PacketVideo did it, who have actually be around for years doing video meida streaming going back to the 56K modem days (and probably before). And they are innovators, not a troll.
Re:Spotify (Score:5, Informative)
If you buy a track on Spotify it will be downloaded as a DRM free MP3.
Re:Spotify (Score:5, Informative)
I suppose artists should be celebrating getting 0.00029c per play [informatio...utiful.net] than nothing at all, right?