Zap Media sues Apple Itunes

Digital distribution patents are at the heart of Zap Media’s patent infringement lawsuit in the great patent troll haven of Eastern District of Texas. The idea of delivering digital content is nothing new, the problem is going to be that just about everyone who delivers any kind of digital content is going to run smack into the Zap media patents.

ZapMedia wants royalties on Apple’s sales of iPods and iTunes music, which reached nearly $11 billion last year. The success of iTunes has helped make Apple the No. 2 music retailer in the U.S. behind Wal-Mart Stores Inc., according to market researcher NPD Group. The patents in question cover a way of sending music and other digital content from servers to multiple media players, a broad description that could also apply to a wide swath of other companies selling digital media and the devices to play it. Source: AP

P2P Net and Macworld are also reporting the news.

The idea of patenting business methods is already coming under fire, and this might be one of the last big patent lawsuits when it comes down to that. The delivery of digital media is really a business process rather than an actual technology like an MP3 player. Delivering bits has been around since the dawn of the internet that is what the internet is all about.

Patents like this just make everyone’s life hard, if not impossible to do incremental improvements on a process.

tags: p2p,zap media, patent troll, digital, content, delivery, method, business, patent, money, troll