For this month's issue of Wired Magazine, I interviewed Kevin Bermeister, CEO of Altnet:
The latest P2P flap comes from within the tech world. Altnet, which provides DRM-encoded files for distribution on Kazaa, has issued cease-and-desist notices to eight P2P companies, including MediaDefender and Overpeer. Altnet accuses them of violating the patent on its TrueNames technology, which calculates a unique number, or hash, based on a digital file's contents. Developers say the patent is fluff; the tech is old and generic. Wired asked Altnet's CEO about his bullying ways.
WIRED: What right do you have to a technology that has been around for decades?
BERMEISTER: In the 1980s, the chief scientist of Brilliant Digital Entertainment, Altnet's parent company, invented a specific use of file hash as it relates to the distribution of content on a widely distributed network. With P2P, dynamic nodes are automatically established and files are indexed by hash to improve network efficiency. This way, users can seek a file from a number of sources and have a better chance of getting it.
WIRED: Why are you suddenly claiming ownership?
BERMEISTER: Right now, P2P is the Wild West of the Internet, and we see an opportunity to commercialize it. Without that patent, a series of claims would inevitably be made not only on Altnet, but on other parties. We want to use the patent to create partnerships.
