Copyfight: Microsoft Takes Shot at Google

March 7, 2007, 8:00 am

Copyfight: Microsoft Takes Shot at Google
By Tom Zeller Jr.

Lobbing the equivalent of a Molotov cocktail into the “copyfight” over intellectual property in the digital age, an associate general counsel at Microsoft, Thomas Rubin, issued a scathing attack on Google in remarks prepared for a conference of the Association of American Publishers.
(The full version of Mr. Rubin’s written comments are published at Microsoft’s Web site, for those who are interested.)

Word of the speech, titled “Searching for Principles: Online Services and Intellectual Property,” began circulating late Tuesday, and as with almost anything else involving these two companies, there was keen interest on the blog circuit.

Mr. Rubin’s primary charge? Google’s riches — particularly as it moves into new media markets, according to Reuters — comes by picking the pockets of book, video and software publishers.

The sentiment will find a receptive audience, given that Google and its ambitious Book Search project has been facing down a lawsuit brought by five book publishers — and organized by the publisher’s association — over just this issue for more than a year.

From the Reuters report this morning on the prepared remarks:
“Companies that create no content of their own, and make money solely on the backs of other people’s content, are raking in billions through advertising revenue and I.P.O.s,” said Mr. Rubin, who oversees copyright and trade-secret law.

“Google takes the position that everything may be freely copied unless the copyright owner notifies Google and tells it to stop,” Mr.Rubin said. Microsoft, he said, asks the copyright’s owner for permission first.

Competition is heating up between Google, the world’s dominant search engine, and Microsoft, which more recently entered the Web search market.

Mr. Rubin invokes criticism that Google has faced since its acquisition of YouTube, which has come under fire from media companies for allowing copyright infringement of professionally produced video.

“In essence, Google is saying to you and to other copyright owners: ‘Trust us — you’re protected. We’ll keep the digital copies secure, we’ll only show snippets, we won’t harm you, we’ll promote you,’” he argues.

In response, Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, was quoted by BBC News as saying that it complied with international copyright laws, and that it worked with more than 10,000 partners to make books searchable online.

“The result has been more exposure and in many cases, more revenue for authors, publishers and producers of content,” Mr. Drummond said.

None of this, of course, has anything to do with Microsoft launching its own Live Search Books service two months ago.

source link: The New York Times