Microsoft chastises Google on copyrights
|
|
Now Microsoft, which is increasingly competing with Google in business software and other areas, is piling on its rival as well. Thomas Rubin, Microsoft’s associate general counsel, told an audience of book publishers on Tuesday that Google “systematically violates copyright” law. Rubin singled out Google Book Search and YouTube for specific criticism, saying the services take a “cavalier approach to copyright.” The audience was an unusually receptive one: the Association of American Publishers, which filed a lawsuit against Google in October 2005 claiming that the search giant violated copyright law by scanning and distributing books protected under copyright law. A trial will not take place before next year. Google’s very business model invites clashes over copyright, of course. As the company becomes more deeply interested in books and video, and expands its search domain beyond Web pages, it has found itself increasingly at odds with established content industries. In addition, its keyword advertising has antagonized some trademark holders, and last month drew allegations of profiting from movie piracy. So far, Google’s intellectual property foes have been scattered throughout industries and without any prominent allies among technology companies. Their complaints about the limits of copyright law being stretched or exceeded have attracted more derision than applause in Silicon Valley. And Google has been winning far more of its legal battles over intellectual property than it has lost. What Rubin’s speech seemed designed to do was compile and air many of the complaints about Google and copyright law–a criticism that has some additional heft because Microsoft itself operates the MSN.com search engine and benefits from legal flexibility when capturing and indexing Web content. “Google’s chosen path would no doubt allow it to make more books searchable online more quickly and more cheaply than others, and in the short term this will benefit Google and its users,” Rubin said. “But the question is, at what long-term cost? In my view, Google has chosen the wrong path for the longer term, because it systematically violates copyright and deprives authors and publishers of an important avenue for monetizing their works. In doing so, it undermines critical incentives to create.” More : news.com |