James Delahunty
6 Mar 2007 9:36
Microsoft Corp. is preparing to attack the policies of Google Inc., in prepared remarks to be sent to the Association of American Publishers, that regard copyright protection. Microsoft Associate General Counsel Thomas Rubin claims that Google's move into new media markets comes at the expense of publishers of books, videos and software.
"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 IPOs," Rubin said. "Google takes the position that everything may be freely copied unless the copyright owner notifies Google and tells it to stop."
He also addressed Google's YouTube service. "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 said. "But Google's track record of protecting copyrights in other parts of its business is weak at best."
Microsoft's outburst is fueled by Google's dominance in web searching, which the Redmond-based corporation has been useless to break. YouTube also is set to stay far ahead of competition for traffic, including Microsoft's own Soapbox site. Also, Microsoft could be worried of Google's recent step into the business software market with a set of Web-based subscription services that could hurt Microsoft's progress in that area.
Microsoft has also been friendly to content providers lately. Some fine examples are the cut that Universal gets from a sale of each Zune and the integrated Digital Rights Management software in an operating system (Windows Vista) for the consumer and business market. David Drummond, Google's senior vice president for corporate development defended Google from the attack, saying the company is working with 10,000 publishing partners to make books searchable online and has recently added the BBC and NBA basketball league as YouTube video partners.
"We do this by complying with international copyright laws, and the result has been more exposure and in many cases more revenue for authors, publishers and producers of content." he said. Rubin has sided with book publishers who are currently suing Google over its plans to scan millions of books and create a searchable database for the content, and he criticised Google's supposed fair use views. "Concocting a novel "fair use" theory, Google bestowed upon itself the unilateral right to make entire copies of copyrighted books," Rubin argued.
In response to that, Drummond replied: "The goal of search engines, and of products like Google Book Search and YouTube, is to help users find information from content producers of every size." Many readers will remember that Microsoft launched a similar attack on "open source" software 5 years ago, saying that it jeopardized property rights and threatened to undermine the software industry.
Open Source software has come a long way, and is now the biggest alternative of Microsoft's Windows franchise.
Source:
Reuters