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U.S. Grants Patent for Method to Plant Decoys in P2P Networks to Thwart File Sharing
A University of Tulsa professor and a graduate student have been granted a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for their method to prevent the unauthorized sharing of media files over peer-to-peer networks. By flooding the network with bogus files that appear to the network and users as real shared media files, the inventors hope to make finding the real files like looking for a needle in a haystack.
The software may be configured to automatically operate to construct and distribute decoys and monitor their sharing. The actual content of the decoy media can assume various forms. Typical content for decoy media can include white noise, degraded versions of proprietary media, warnings of the legal consequences of sharing copyrighted media and advertisements, among others. Some record companies are already working to flood sharing networks with fake files. The subject patent was filed in 2000 and it is an open question whether the patent's validity will stand up to full scrutiny. An even larger question may be whether songwriters and performers will want their names associated with bogus files of white noise and degraded versions of their material.
For a look at the patent click:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=6732180
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