Microsoft on Tuesday launches a fierce attack on Google over its
"cavalier" approach to copyright, accusing the internet company of
exploiting books, music, films and television programmes without
permission.
Tom Rubin, associate general counsel for Microsoft, will say in a
speech in New York that while authors and publishers find it hard
to cover costs, "companies that create no content of their own, and
make money solely on the back of other people's content, are raking
in billions through advertising and initial public
offerings".
Mr Rubins remarks, presaged in an article in Tuesdays Financial
Times, come as Google faces criticism and legal pressure from media
companies over services allowing users to search online for books,
films, television programmes and news. Viacom, the US media group,
instructed YouTube, which Google owns, to remove 100,000 clips of
copyright material.
The Authors Guild and a group of publishers backed by the
Association of American Publishers have separately sued Google for
making digital copies of copyrighted books from libraries without
permission.
Mr Rubin will tell the AAP's annual meeting that Googles decision
to take digital copies of all books in various library collections,
unless publishers tell it not to, "systematically violates
copyright, deprives authors and publishers of an important avenue
for monetizing their works and, in doing so, undermines incentives
to create".
He will say Google is breaching copyright law because it has
"bestowed upon itself the unilateral right to make entire copies of
copyrighted books". Google thinks it is acting legally because it
publishes only "snippets" of copyrighted works unless it has the
publishers permission.
But Mr Rubin will say in Tuesdays speech: "Google is saying to you
and 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".
"But . . . anyone who visits YouTube . . . will immediately
recognize that it follows a similar cavalier approach to
copyright."
Microsoft is trying to differentiate itself from Google by
portraying itself as more sympathetic to copyright holders than
Google, and has sent a letter to executives of big media
conglomerates, offering to work with them to eliminate piracy from
Soapbox, a new video service on MSN.
Patricia Schroeder, AAP president, said it had agreed to work with
Microsoft and others to develop principles on responsible book
search.
Google said it believed it was acting legally and ethically in
providing snippets of in-copyright books and added that it removed
books promptly when contacted by publishers. It said it generated
more than $3bn of advertising revenues for other internet sites
last year, which showed that it did not simply exploit the content
of others.
No better than Google.
