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Careful! P2P streaming video is a (completely non obvious, according to the courts) infringement of the VirNetX patent that for example Apple just had to pay a few billions of dollars for.

If you implement p2p video streaming chances are no company will want to touch it with a ten foot pole.




Um, shouldn't the patent have expired by now ?


Probably not or it would have been on the news and you would start seeing p2p communications again. It’s not rocket science, after all.


But p2p streaming has been around since the mid 2000's ?? (Pre-Microsoft Skype, Miro, Joost, Tribler...)

And for some recent examples : what about Popcorn Time ? Or PeerTube ?

EDIT : Oh, I guess that most of those are technically not "streaming", but "watching while downloading" like YouTube or FTP+VLC ?


The court does not agree with you. A peer to peer communication service, like FaceTime was originally, violates the patents.


Ok, so : when was this patent approved, and when does it expire ?


I think this year but I suggest you look it up yourself, they probably are mentioned in the court documents and the dates are public.


I can't find any specific dates (and I'm not going to go fishing into court documents), but wow, this has been going on for more than a decade now !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirnetX

> Separately, in December 2014, Microsoft and VirnetX settled patent disputes over Skype technology for $23 million.




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