[achievingApathy]

I must be missing something here.

I read the entire patent and it repeatedly mentions file metadata and a "content flag" that can be toggled and read to determine if there is restricted or prohibited content included in the file or stream.

So what I think this says is a copyright owner notices that you are sharing XYZ's latest movie and files a claim with the cloud provider. That metadata flag is then toggled and sharing is no longer allowed and there is some master server somewhere that tracks how many times files you have uploaded have been flagged. For this they can get a patent?

Why couldn't someone just change the metadata? Or presumably change the checksum?

(I think I have a really great way to actually implement something like this but I have to fill out a patent application before I tell anyone.)