Alan Cox Files Patent For DRM 281
booooh writes "Alan Cox has filed a patent for DRM (Digital Rights Management). From the filing: 'A rights management system monitors and controls use of a computer program to prevent use that is not in compliance with acceptable terms.' According to the patent pledge of Cox's employer Red Hat, they will not license this technology if the patent is granted. And it can probably be applied to the DRM that is in Vista. This forum has a few more details.
Illegal iTunes? (Score:5, Funny)
FrostWire (Score:5, Interesting)
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Spahling ignorant?
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LimeWire to warez is like AOL to newsgroups [wikipedia.org] ("newsgroups" is something that us "grammer enligthned" used to enjoy before your shitty Web 2.0 bullshit and iPop iMusic).
Calling LimeWire out in the P2P world is like saying your cancer is better than my cancer.
FWIW, I jumped on LimeWire in the early days when it was semi-open-source. As a Java developer, I gravitated to that one. When itunes came out, I started paying for my music and uninstalled all P2P clients.
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In the old days, we had CDs, which had no DRM.
Then we had P2P, which had no DRM.
Along came the iTMS, and we had DRM.
And you picked the DRM choice? Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.
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Unlike you, I can see the justification for the way folks behave against music since I view the laws as having been bought illegally. The
I'm sorry that the music industry successfully b
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First, the common greeting.
Now, let's take a look at the posters rendition.
While the choice of emotion, & objectionable stereotype used is questionable, it still maintains good form.
Note that here, the poster has suggested that at this moment, they're of the same world, or on the same level, or able to understand eachother, we'll get into this in more detail later.
Re:FrostWire (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this honestly the best troll you could come up with ? What is wrong with you people - don't you even try anymore ?
Trolls aren't what they used to be. But then again, I guess being made into a twisted parody of nature enslaved to Morgoth by a second rate hobbyist fantasy author and be forced to remember your time as a relatively benign mythological being from Scandinavian folklore all your miserable existence would do that to you, I guess. And the movie trilogy, which makes mockery of both your original and Tolkien-corrupted nature, would certainly not help.
See ? That's a troll. It combines trivia, imflammatory opinions, and a condescending tone with at least some creativity. That's how it's done. "Go fuck yourself, loser"... Bah.
And moderators: The best comments are always, invariably, drawn out as responses to the worst trolls (sometimes the story itself). Slashdot needs quality trolls. A quality troll is one that hits where it hurts, and provokes people to answer in detail with eloquence and passion. It helps hone your own views to the razor's edge as only a worthy foe can. Without them, Slashdot would be nothing more than a bunch of people congratulating each other over their l33tn3s. "Go fuck yourself, loser" is not a good troll, it doesn't mentally challenge even the dimmest-witted steroid-using old boxer. So mod up good trolls, and mod down garbage like the post I answered to.
Slashdot needs (+1, Troll) besides (-1, Troll).
Trivia? (Score:3, Informative)
You do realize the origin of "trolling" stems from the fishin
Re:FrostWire (Score:5, Funny)
How obedient of you, you deserve a treat.
*pats domesticated ape on the head*
Aww, isn't he cute?
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How obedient of you, you deserve a treat.
*pats domesticated ape on the head*
Aww, isn't he cute?
Well, I can't say my motives were completely altruistic. I got sick of the spamwarez pawned by clients like limewire and bearshare. And of course, the death of napster.
I evaluated about 10 music management programs and decided itunes was the only one that met most of my requirements.
Believe me, I hate the DRM part, but I am willing to suffer DRM to get the features I wanted.
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Why would anyone need to pirate software? Just get yourself GNU.
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Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Wow! (Score:5, Interesting)
Assuming the PTO behaves as it has in the past, this patent will be granted and it will be up to litigation to sort out prior art. It will be up to Alan and Red Hat to pick who they want to attack first. If they pick somebody big, there is a serious danger that they will retaliate against Red Hat. Think about what IBM did to SCO. Every single SCO product has a patent claim infringement case against it.
If Red Hat is smart, they'd work out a deal with a friendly party who is willing to spend the money and litigate against them first. IBM or Novell might be candidates. The idea here would be that the "defendent" would want the courts to reach a common outcome with the plaintiffs and both sides would cooperate insofar as they would force the court to pick between precedents that are favorable to both sides.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Or the patent system will work and the patent won't be granted (prior art).
Or the patent system will work and the patent will be granted because it is narrow in scope (only covers a specific type of DRM) which won't hurt DRM in general because no one implements it in the patented way. (If they do, prior art kills the patent)
Claim 1 in the patent (Score:2)
What is claimed is
1. A method of controlling use of a computer program, said method comprising the steps of: monitoring usage of said computer program for at least one instance of a rights violation event; saving, upon detection of said rights violation event, state information pertaining to said computer program; and suspending, upon saving said state information, operation of said computer program.
This is an awfully broad claim. I would think proving prior art here and invalida
*All* claims must be meet for patent violation (Score:2)
Re:*All* claims must be meet for patent violation (Score:5, Interesting)
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If your invention includes all the elements of any given claim, you infringe in the US.
You may be confused with regards to dependent claims.
(E.g. Claims that begin with something like "The invention in claim 1, where
In the case of dependent claims, you'd have to include all the elements of that claim, and its parent claims up to the initial independent claim, to infringe.
Re:*All* claims must be meet for patent violation (Score:5, Informative)
You don't have to take my word for it. Read this: [iusmentis.com]
Something infringes a patent if it has all the elements of a claim in the patent, or performs all the steps of a claim. It does not have to match all the claims, a single one will do. However, it is important that it matches all elements in that single claim. Most patent courts take this requirement quite strictly and will not easily ignore an element in a claim unless it is clearly irrelevant. One often-heard argument against ignoring an element is that patent writers are aware of the strict interpretation and so would not put in an element unless necessary. Therefore, an element that is present in the claim must have been deemed necessary and so may not be ignored.
I didn't read this case, but citing slashdot on patent issues is like citing Soviet propaganda to find out about the US Constitution. It is just about the worst place to find reliable information on patents.
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Unlike the vast majority of people on slashdot (especially those whining loudest about patents), I actually have real knowledge and experience with them (though I would not hold myself out as a patent expert). I've filed several patents (for my own business and a previous employer) and my wife is a laywer & is admitted to the patent bar. I simply cited the website to end th
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As I said before, you and most people on slashdot understand very little about patents. You're all too ready to tar and feather any patent holder based on your misinterpretation of specific patents and patent law (not to mention a lack of appreciation for certain fundamental aspects of business)
That said: Infringement can be (and often is) found if a product violates any one individual claim in the patent. The product, however, must violate every limitation found within that claim, i.e., if
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Except that, in the grandparent post, I wasn't concerned about whether a product would violate the patent. My point is that before the situation even gets to that point, the patent is going to have difficulty issuing in the first place since 1) the patent authors have written a very broad claim, and 2) a lot of people have been working on DRM for a long time. While I know next to nothing about the specifics of DRM, to my
Re:*All* claims must be meet for patent violation (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, but have any of them actually produced valid, workable DRM software? I get the impression that most of them are invalidated (i.e., "cracked") within days of release. Either that, or like the Sony "rootkit DRM", the DRM was a fiasco that was quickly withdrawn due to its side-effects on customers' equipment.
Cox and RedHat can be making the claim that all previous DRM has been poorly-functioning and/or vaporware, and they're the first ones to have actually implemented it. If so, those who support DRM should support their patent. (Whether software should actually be patentable is an independent issue.)
There's a lot of precedent for patents for inventions that others have attempted. I recently read an interesting history of the invention of the zipper. Many people tried to invent such a mechanism in the 1800s. Their attempts generally worked for a while, but were fragile and required frequent replacement. Finally, someone came up with the zipper that we all know, which both worked and was sturdy enough to last for years in normal clothing. They got a patent on it, despite the fact that many other (poor) zipper mechanisms had already been invented. Theirs was slightly different from all the others, and it actually worked well.
There are many stories like this in the history of technology, with many false starts before someone comes up with a good solution to a problem.
There is another potential problem with this patent, however. It's the way that the US Patent Office now accepts patents without a working model. So it's entirely possible that Cox and RedHat are also patenting vaporware that they can't build. Do we know much about this question?
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Interesting)
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Microsoft? They're not huge DRM supporters by nature, they just implement it because they think that's the only way copyright holders will use Microsoft networks/products to distribute their music/movies/whatever.
Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
Say what? I have just three words for you.
Windows Genuine Advantage.
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And "first to file/first to invent" only covers when two people/companies file a patent at around the same time without any previous public disclosure of their work. (e.g. they both developed the same thing independently) Previous (patented or unpatented) publically disclosed work trumps a patent.
"First to invent" can often be hard to prove though, so in reality it's usually "first to file" unless you were VERY careful in documenting your invention process and have lots of money for lawyers.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the patent application.
It is actually an interesting take on the licensing paradigm. Most licensing programs either start denying you access which leads to loss of data if this happens in the middle of an operation. Alternatively, they kill your program altogether which is again loss of data. Alternatively they check for licensing only when the program starts. In the days of software suspend and 200+ days of uptimes neither one of these is a good idea.
What redhat is patenting is a three pronged approach - OS suspend, component suspend or application suspend when a license violation is encountered. The first one is obvious, the second one and third one are non-obvious until one consideres RedHat aquisition of Jboss. These actually make a lot of sense in a Jboss application.
Overall, I am not surprised that RedHat has no intention of licensing this commercially. If they provide the relevant support, this will give a Jboss based commercial application considerable advantage over BEA and Websphere.
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While the individual packages of RHEL are GPLed, the integrated OS as a whole is not. One interesting thought is -- what happens w
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I would guess your proposed situation is not a significant problem for Red Hat. Purchasers of Red Hat Enterprise Linux are large corporations that want the backing of their vendors. The way it works is that when one `purchases` Red Hat Enterprise Linux,
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And even if Red Hat did something like this, all these former customers would have to do is drop in CENTOS [centos.org] or one of the other recompiled clones of RHEL [raimokoski.com].
The grandparent's premise is ludicrous. Red Hat makes money by selling support, not software.
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Doing so would be an extra condition applied on use of the individual packages included in RHEL, and therefore a violation of the GPL. If there's any non-GPL software included (I've never tried it, so can't be sure), then it could be used for that.
Or it could be a landgrab ai
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What? You expect RedHat to actually use this? I don't know what planet you're from, but you're not from mine.
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Hope this works (Score:5, Insightful)
Flamebait?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Read up on TCPA immediately. Consider how much of the design of Vista has been aimed at preventing access to high-quality copies of information protected by DRM. Should the film industry really have been allowed to design an operating system?
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The threat that "DRM will make your computer useless" is not really relevant. Nothing in TCPA really stipulates that all content must be filtered through DRM or that all content must be encrypted or obfuscated. All pipes between components may be marked trusted or not, and when content marked "
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It seems quite relevant to me when faced with the possibility of having to purchase a bunch of new gear just to be able to run DRM'd software or watch DRM'd movies and other content that wouldn't otherwise require a hardware upgrade.
It's not likely to affect Vista (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's not likely to affect Vista (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems Alan is trying to patent a subpart of DRM which will render it useless if it cannot be used.
Re:It's not likely to affect Vista (Score:5, Informative)
That said, Microsoft has a whole lot of other patents as well, and some of those are bound to cover code distributed by Red Hat. I just wanted to correct the misconception that holding a patent on something automatically protects your use of that stuff: it doesn't in any way, all it does is give you the right to prevent others from doing that. But it's quite possible you need umpteen other patent licenses yourself to be able to actually do what you describe in your patent application.
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But this is a pretty good test of the patent system too, because Alan has probably some very similar methods claimed. The end result will probably be granted, but then disallowed on prior art grounds when it makes it to court. And while it may be to us, prima faci evidence of a broken sy
He left a backdoor (Score:2, Interesting)
From the patent:
A rights management system monitors and controls use of a computer program to prevent use that is not in compliance with acceptable terms. The system monitors usage of the computer program for usage and activities that are not in compliance with the license or other use terms. Upon detection of a violation of these terms, state information pertaining to the computer program is saved and operation of the computer program and/or a portion of the computer system is suspended. The system maint
Perfect (Score:3, Insightful)
All Microsoft has to do to get around his patent is make it so that, once DRM breaks your computer, it stays broke. (Until you do something. Like, the infamous "format and reinstall".) (Which, BTW, you can only do once.)
Exactly. It forces DRM to be nasty (unless you licence this patent) and therefore harder to shove down consumers' throats.
Even if Red Hat licenses this patent out for an exorbitant amount of money (which it would have to be, considering DRM really hurts Red Hat's business), it will serve to fund the development of free alternatives to DRM-infested software.
This is good, but with caution (Score:5, Interesting)
But I'm still not that excited. Most on
Re:This is good, but with caution (Score:4, Interesting)
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Actually it likely will not cripple adoption. Although there is no intention of licensing the technology they didn't state they were going to sue anyone who had such technology in their products. I suspect that Red Hat has no issues with companies like Apple and Microsoft enraging their own customers by implementing technologies that hinder legal use of products they've paid for.
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Everyone has their price, and the media industry and Microsoft between them have deep pockets.
Pointless waste of money and time (Score:5, Informative)
Not really (Score:5, Interesting)
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Clearly not the Intent (Score:4, Informative)
Far from trolling, this is protection from trolling.
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Not entirely sure it's "stupid"... (Score:2)
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I would like to ... (Score:2, Funny)
Making DRM-aware applications even more annoying? (Score:5, Interesting)
As patent law, legalese and such is not my area of expertise, I'm out on a limb here, but doesn't this sound like a patent for saving the state of an DRM-aware application before exiting if a DRM-breaking state occurs, thus making legal DRM-aware applications even more annoying to use?
Re:Making DRM-aware applications even more annoyin (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Making DRM-aware applications even more annoyin (Score:4, Insightful)
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The Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
note to myself (Score:2, Funny)
How is this supposed to work? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:How is this supposed to work? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Or did you forget that these are filthy rich companies we're talking about?
Re:How is this supposed to work? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are two possibilities how this could go to court:
1. Mr. Cox finds out that for example Microsoft does actually infringe on his patent, and he tries to do an Eolas on them. You can be sure that he would find lawyers who will happily support him for 60 percent of the proceeds on a no win, no fee basis. Mr. Cox would go down in public opinion quite a lot, but he might not care with $100mil in his pocket.
2. Microsoft starts attacking Linux with patent claims, and Mr. Cox's patent is used as part of the "assured mutual destruction" policy that patents are used for. It won't be Mr. Cox paying for the court case.
probably not... (Score:2, Informative)
That's stupid (in the sense of *really stupid*) (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That's stupid (in the sense of *really stupid*) (Score:5, Informative)
Are you sure? This does not seem to be a patent for all DRM, but for a system that saves the state of the application when detecting a condition that violates the rules.
What do you mean?
Red Hat is no patent troll. A patent troll is a company whose only business is patenting and suing for infringement. And that isn't a description of Red Hat by a long stretch.
So everyone that don't like the current implementation of the patent system should refrain from patenting things at all? Let's face it, patents exist and don't seem to be going away. As a corporation, refraining from patenting anything would be an invitation to competitors to sue, as you would have almost no defensive capability. Avoiding infringement altogether is about as easy as walking through a minefield, so in case you are sued, you need some defensive measures to fight off the attacker.
A lot of patents cover the same or almost the same thing. It's a feature of the current implementation of patents, and whose patent is valid is left for the courts to decide.
One could suspect that the system is set up only to enrich lawyers, as lawyers in the patent office earn money proportional to the number of granted patent applications. Then their patent lawyer friends earn money when corporations battle it out in court. A different implementation might require the patent office to not issue patents that cover each other, but then the lawyers would not be able to enrich themselves as much.
Lets publicize it! (Score:2)
Except that, by bringing it to the public limelight, you've just guaranteed that the aforementioned companies will attempt to get the patent thrown out due to section 102 a or b of Title 35 of the US Code (Patents).
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Time Travel Patents (Score:4, Funny)
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Time_Travel_Patents [uncyclopedia.org]
Jolyon
Reminds me of a thought (Score:2)
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Also, patents cost money. Lots of patents cost lots of money. Who has enough money to patent everything?
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Go ahead, license it! (Score:4, Insightful)
The key is not to make money, it is to drive home the high cost of DRM, making the downside totally obvious to all. Remember, no matter how ridiculous the terms might be, it really won't be any worse than the copyright industry will do all by themselves in a few years. But instead of using the salami-slice method, the all-at-once/in-your-face method forces everyone to confront the issue here and now.
I think the DRM patent is a really nifty strategy, and presented here on Martin Luther King day, no less!
Whatever (Score:4, Insightful)
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Even if they were found guilty of patent infringement at some point in the future, our sad, sad "legal" system would probably just let them walk again.
Geld uber alles!
MS & SCO (Score:3, Insightful)
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Unless he's granted a huge wad of cash by someone like RedHat (who I can't see wanting to be involved in a more-political-than-anything-else patent dispute that much), I don't really see this going anywhere, and in the grand scheme of things I don't think t
Cute, but cannot work I think (Score:3, Informative)
Then why was RAND... (Score:2)
And even if it can override it, perhaps it is pretty difficult to achieve (plus costly...).
Let us suppose this patent is granted (Score:2)
Why exactly are we convinced that Novell will just bury the technique and shield us from DRM forever?
Novell is a publicly owned company and has a duty (legally) to earn money for their shareholders. I cannot see of a situation where they'd make more by sitting on it, than they would by licensing it - If I was a shareholder in a company that got this patent, I'd want them to make me money.
Whatever their intention
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Redhat != Novell
Ah yes. (Score:2)
*smacks head into desk*
Mr. Cox, you are brilliant (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that (3) is what makes DRM systems very dumb. It also follows that the Operating System must get involved in order to so hide the data.
If the Operating System allows a debugger to run AT THE SAME TIME as the "DRM", its attackable. If the OS allows "unsigned" drivers to run, its attackable.
The OS (for example, Vista) will (eventually) not allow unsigned drivers. It must also "kick out" or "suspend" all non-DRM (unsigned) software when DRM content is played.
This behaviour falls into Mr. Coxs patent.
Now, if (Vista) doesn't implement the scheme, it remains vulnerable. So, the problem must be solved another way.
My suggestion then is to ALSO patent (or disallow) by widely publishing the idea that a hypervisor (VM supervisor) can be used for DRM control as well, and can also be used to suspend, terminate or otherwise control applications that could be used to attack DRM software.
Got that? It's now published.
If it wins wave bye bye to online media sales... (Score:2, Interesting)
In a commercial world commercial companies have no requirement to sell anything to any one. So if you say I'll not buy it because it has X or does Y then that's your prerogative. It's the company's prerogative not to sell you something. It is the company's commercial decision to decide how many sales they are happy to lose that way.
So if
Early Edition (Score:2)
They've also filed an international application (Score:2, Informative)
Also, according to a recent PTO Official Gazette The art unit to which this application is assigned has been giving first actions on applications filed about the time of this one, so perhaps an action will be forthcoming soon, although it depends mainly on the individual examiner's docket
Good DRM eg Steam (Score:2, Interesting)
Prior art != invalidation (Score:3, Informative)
The Inventor's Handbook (http://web.mit.edu/invent/h-main.html) describes this and many other relevant points in a manner far more readable than the patent laws.
Re: Prior (Art?) (Score:2)
The lovely part is using MS's own submarine tactics against them. If only Warren Buffett would sell short, then crank this patent suit and any cousins as far as they can go...
Oh gawd, if someone can actually land this and not "settle for $5000", EVERYONE has overcommited their 5-year business strategies to DRM. Come on, reel in all twelve of the eight-ton sharks polluting our media culture.
The captcha phrase is develops.
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