Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied • Hacker News Board

Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied

#31

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 2:25 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #11

thatguy0900 wrote: post #3

I really wish there would be some kind of overhaul in patents. Why was a patent for "The technology in question relates to the ability to connect speakers in groups and control their volume." ever granted? That seems like the very first thing you would do when connecting two speakers. Unless this is some kind of ai that tracks where you are and dynamically changes volumes to maintain a surround sound feel or somethin…

Might be good to read the patents before posting this comment. The patents in the suit are far, far more detailed than Inc's throwaway one-line description in this article. Sonos' tech here also involves seamless automatic wireless setup and automatically assessing relative speaker volume for a given space, and all kinds of other things. If you've set up a group of Sonos speakers, versus any of the competitors, you k…

I've had to set up Sonos equipment in our corporate network (because President gonna President) and frankly I wasn't that impressed. I imagine it works a lot better for home users, but here I had to downgrade WPA3 to WPA2 to get them to see each other on the network, you have to use an IGMP proxy if you want a client to be able to connect from a different VLAN, and things get very confused if you have two different versions set up (because older hardware isn't supported on the newer versions).

Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied

#32

Post by MereInterest » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

snickerer wrote: post #26

The basic problem I see here is that you don't own the speakers you have bought. My moral point of view is: I bought the thing so I own it. I must be allowed to understand how it works and I decide what it does. I should be able to change the thing's behavior (if I have the skills) and no one else can do that without my order. Buying locked black boxes is bad (for the customers). Buying locked black boxes that change…

Agreed wholeheartedly. Google is acting like their hands are tied, and cannot possibly take any other action than to remove a feature from existing devices. If they do, they should be fully liable for fraud, having performed a bait and switch. That the switch happened a significant time after the purchase doesn't change the fact that Google misrepresented the capabilities of the product.

Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied

#33

Post by alistairSH » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

taubek wrote: post #2

Can you block devices from getting an "upgrade" which is basically a "downgrade"?

Or does the consumer have any recourse with Google? I suspect not in the USA, but maybe in the EU (assuming Google rolls this feature removal out globally)?

Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied

#34

Post by fsflover » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 2:26 PM UTC

snickerer wrote: post #26

The basic problem I see here is that you don't own the speakers you have bought. My moral point of view is: I bought the thing so I own it. I must be allowed to understand how it works and I decide what it does. I should be able to change the thing's behavior (if I have the skills) and no one else can do that without my order. Buying locked black boxes is bad (for the customers). Buying locked black boxes that change…

If you want to support alternative vendors, have a look at this: https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v12/.

Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied

#35

Post by bsedlm » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 2:28 PM UTC

snickerer wrote: post #26

The basic problem I see here is that you don't own the speakers you have bought. My moral point of view is: I bought the thing so I own it. I must be allowed to understand how it works and I decide what it does. I should be able to change the thing's behavior (if I have the skills) and no one else can do that without my order. Buying locked black boxes is bad (for the customers). Buying locked black boxes that change…

What if examining the thing you own endangers somebody (including yourself?) should you be allowed to change its behaviors (consider as an example altering your car in an unsafe way)?

As computers are now everywhere and have to do with everything, it is becoming a real political issue to decide if people should be allowed to really modify their computers.

Smartphones most certainly do not allow it. PCs do, but they're from the hobby dominated earlier phase of the technology.

> Buying locked black boxes that change their functionality without my consent after I bought them is a so utterly broken system that I don't have words for it.

I just refer to this as our current situation, and it's going to get worse.

Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied

#36

Post by alistairSH » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 2:31 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #31

Bud wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be good to read the patents before posting this comment. The patents in the suit are far, far more detailed than Inc's throwaway one-line description in this article. Sonos' tech here also involves seamless automatic wireless setup and automatically assessing relative speaker volume for a given space, and all kinds of other things. If you've set up a group of Sonos speakers, versus any of the competitors, you k…

I've had to set up Sonos equipment in our corporate network (because President gonna President) and frankly I wasn't that impressed. I imagine it works a lot better for home users, but here I had to downgrade WPA3 to WPA2 to get them to see each other on the network, you have to use an IGMP proxy if you want a client to be able to connect from a different VLAN, and things get very confused if you have two different v…

Those all sound like things that would be rarely encountered in a typical home installation.

I have a few older Sonos One speakers (the OG version) and the setup was trivial for our use case (background music in kitchen, bedroom, and living room). At the time (~5 years ago), they were the clear market leader, both in audio quality and ease-of-use.

I did consider swapping them out for the first HomePod, but price put me off. Apple has since discontinued in favor of the Mini - I need to check them out and see if the audio quality is remotely comparable before making any change.

Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied

#37

Post by alistairSH » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 2:32 PM UTC

mattmcknight wrote: post #20

Bud wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be good to read the patents before posting this comment. The patents in the suit are far, far more detailed than Inc's throwaway one-line description in this article. Sonos' tech here also involves seamless automatic wireless setup and automatically assessing relative speaker volume for a given space, and all kinds of other things. If you've set up a group of Sonos speakers, versus any of the competitors, you k…

If the patent didn't cover adjusting the volume for a group of speakers, why did Google have to disable it? While the patent portfolio did include other things, Google is being forced to disable the basic, obvious feature.

The patents did cover controlling volume across the group, but there was more to it (see the 5 patents linked elsewhere in this discussion).

Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied

#38

Post by leoedin » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #28

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #6

Infringing on patents need not involve "copying" or "stolen technology", and shitty outlets like Inc. know their framing is BS.

But Sonos claims Google actually did steal the technology. And the court agrees. From the article: Back in 2013, while Google was considering how it could make its music streaming service work on Sonos' speakers, the latter company gave the search giant an inside look at its technology. At the time, it didn't seem like a big deal. Google wasn't making speakers, and it wasn't in the smart home business at all. It woul…

The feature is about adjusting the volume of a group of speakers together. That doesn't sound like the kind of thing that you'd need to copy Sonos' source code to implement. Maybe that inside look lead Google to decide to enter the market, but I really doubt the person who wrote the speaker-group volume functionality had ever seen anything from Sonos. If they had they'd be facing copyright infringement lawsuits too.

Ultimately software patents don't really care how something is implemented, just that it has the functionality defined in the patent. So for this ruling it doesn't really matter if Google copied Sonos or not.

Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied

#39

Post by kop316 » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

nosianu wrote: post #18

Sorry, but for this link I only get 404 Page Not Found We're sorry for any inconvenience. We can't find the page you're looking for. I would not say anything if it said "blocked for your IP/country", but it appears there is nothing any more behind that link. Was the article removed? EDIT: Ad-blocker (uBlock Origin) off and the page loads. I should have thought of that, there was a flicker of something else before the…

Are you using uMatrix?

I had to completely disable any scripts to get it to appear, or else I got a 404.

Re: Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied

#40

Post by Bud » Tue, Jan 11, 2022, 2:33 PM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #10

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #6

Infringing on patents need not involve "copying" or "stolen technology", and shitty outlets like Inc. know their framing is BS.

We may never know if Google used their special insider access with Sonos to steal technology or not. But the optics certainly don’t look good.

On the contrary, we already know, and the details in the suit prove it. Sonos engineers used packet sniffing. Google copied the precise techniques Sonos uses to set up and control speakers.