Microsoft Attacks Google on Copyright

The Microsoft Corporation has prepared a blistering attack on rival Google, arguing that the Web search leader takes a cavalier approach to copyright protection. The attack, such as it were, came from Microsoft's Associate General Counsel who was giving a speech to the Association of American Publishers...who have a copyright lawsuit against Google for the last sixteen months. So, an audience ready to hear about how Bad Google is.

mmm...

[rbochan]

mmm... glass houses...

Who's more evil?

[truthsearch]

And Microsoft takes a "cavalier approach" to their users, to privacy [msversus.org], to the free market... so who's more evil?

If Google really didn't care they could do far far worse to abuse copyright than anything they've done so far. Microsoft is just placating an audience.

English?

[adavies42]

Is this submission even English? "The Microsoft Corporation", "The attack, such as it were", "who have a copyright lawsuit against Google for the last sixteen months"--none of these are right. And to top it off, it ends in a sentence fragment.

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As an author

[tomstdenis]

of two books that have sold upwards of 2000 copies (yipee I suck!) I have to say, STFU Microsoft. The day my books came out they were on the torrent websites (thanks to my publisher releasing the book in ebook format the same day). Google archiving the book would have ZERO effect on my sales (which are low because nobody knows who I am, and I suck at teh English) and in effect may actually help them if key passages are searchable.

If publishers want to stop piracy of texts, STOP RELEASING EBOOKS THE SAME DAY FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

Tom

no doubt; kettle meet pot.

[WindBourne]

amazing that MS says these things when they are well known in and out of the industry for their large amounts of theft and patent/copyright abuse, let alone their total abuse of their monopoly.

More fun from TFA

[Mateo_LeFou]

"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,' "

Bad news, Rubin: Google is exactly right to say that. Fair Use Rule #4 evaluates "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." And I don't think it's hard to show that prominence on a Google property affects this potential market *extremely positively.

teacup calling the teapot fat

[mastershake_phd]

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.

Is either buying out your competitors or putting them out of business "creating content"?

Of course...

[RyanFenton]

Aren't the processes of indexing servers, and the exclusive right to make copies of information inherently in conflict? Same thing with a system that by default allows anyone to share any information publicly, like the phone system, open public speech, or, in this case, the Internet. I don't think the 'copy right' was originally intended to apply beyond books and blueprints anyway, but the way it has grown, I don't know how one would get a representative view of our world without breaking copy rights along the way in at least many small ways.

That's why there have classically been exceptions allowed for sampling information, why one case of illegal copying haven't been used to call every tangential person involved in the copy from being punished, and that the original intent of copyrights, to 'promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", has classically been the focus, rather than just blindly punishing people, who naturally tend to share information.

Ryan Fenton

Re:Oh boy.

[Ngarrang]

Yes, divert the attention on to someone else while your own search engine is just as guilty. The FUD is really flying today.

Re:More fun from TFA

[tha_mink]

Bad news, Rubin: Google is exactly right to say that. Fair Use Rule #4 evaluates "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." And I don't think it's hard to show that prominence on a Google property affects this potential market *extremely positively.

I'd love to see how many "copyright holders" would actually make the choice of being delisted from any and all google enterprises rather than expose the copyrighted work. I'd love it if Google said something like..."All right , no soup for you" and then just delisted everything that had anything to do with them. I doubt they'd care much about infringement then.

It's all bullshit. They don't care about their copyrights until they think they can squeeze money from someone. When YouTube was just YouTube, there was just as much copyrighted stuff there ans there is now. "Google has deep pockets now. They must be infringing something of ours. Let's get em." It's bullshit, plus Google hasn't even started to realize the profit from YouTube advertising. If you were producing a sitcom, wouldn't you want clips of your crap to go viral on YouTube? It's got much better chance happening there than it does on mystupidsitcom.abc.disney.com that's for sure.

Copy this..!

[Co Starring]

What's next?

Parents getting sued because they are telling a story from a children's book?
Me talking about a movie explaining how great the storyline is?
Am I still allowed to sing my favorite songs under the shower?

Re:Oh boy.

[Gerzel]

It is better because it doesn't have the same monopolistic bulk that MS branded evil does. Google may have a monopoly of sorts in the search engine business but it isn't nearly of a scale of domination that MS has for operating systems.

Re:It is so sad

[UnknowingFool]

If Microsoft would spend all the cash they give to lawyers on R&D, they might actually produce decent product. Instead, they pump out crap after crap after crap.

MS spent $1+ billion in R&D last quarter so it's not for lack of funding. It's not that they don't have brilliant people. It's that MS as a corporation has conflicting and competing goals. Their different divisions could come out with great products but on the whole, their products must not undermine the whole corporation. Namely they must do everything to ensure Windows is the only operating system, Window Media the only media format, SQL server the only SQL database, etc. The Office division could do a port to Linux. There is some money to be made, but that would undermine Windows. Zune could have been tied to more open formats but that would hurt Windows and the Media division. And the list goes on.

Sony has the same problem. Their MP3 players could have been great and taken the market from Apple but they had to protect their content division. Thus the first versions used proprietary formats that all but crippled them.

Re:More fun from TFA

[Veilrap]

No it is no where near an abuse of monopoly not to list someone on your search service. Google is a private company and is fully allowed to customize its survice as it sees fit. If google feels that having a company listed will detract from google's customers' overall satisfaction they are perfectly allowed to do as they please. Don't give me anymore of this monopoly bs.

Attack from the MS legal dept

[shadowspar]

The fact that threats against Google are being launched by Microsoft's legal team instead of their engineering department tells you all you need to know.

Re:no doubt; kettle meet pot.

[Achromatic1978]

How about MSIE itself. they cut a deal to pay the mozaic group spin-off a .01 / each one sold and then embedded it (i.e. the company got SQUAT).

While definitely not fair, and not really moral either, MOSAIC got their ass handed to them on a platter. Nowhere in the deeds of contract for the agreement did they ever specify minimum sales prices, minimum volumes, etc., hell they didn't even have a clause that required the product to be sold at all.

If MOSAIC is to be pissed at anyone, they should be going after their law firm, for letting such a gaping, gaping hole slip through the contract - it wasn't even a minor loophole that MS used, it was the entire point of the freaking contract!

What is content?

[mlwmohawk]

I take great issue with the statement:

"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"

For what it is worth, Google does make a lot of money on the work of others, but not by copying or stealing it. Google and other search engines analyze, categorize, and parse copyrighted material and create indexes that make it easy to search. Makes that one document in billions findable.

This is no small feat, and copyright holders are making more money with google than without. Google indexes about 8-10 billion documents. They make zero cash for the documents. They make money providing a service to the people searching for material. That service is finding documents. The copyright holders should count themselves fortunate.

It is a self serving argument that some of google's cash belongs to me because they use my documents. Google drives people looking for your data to you. If you don't want this service that is done for you for free, then you can opt out at any time.

Re:no doubt; kettle meet pot.

[WindBourne]

Well known = Your biased Opinion

Google is your friend (and a friend to the copyright folks). At the least, you would have done well to read the 2'nd post where I detailed just a few of MS's dirty deeds (that were done dirt cheap).

Look up Gates and buying digital artwork.

And your point? Hitler did the vast majoirty of things legally as did Idi Amin, Al Capone, Scooter libbey, Carl Rove, Dick Cheney, GWB, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, and Brian Flannigan (a hooligan that I grew up with) and the next person who shoplifts for kicks. But did they still break the law? Absolutely. Gates is in the same category; A crook. Just some are worse than others.

Re:Oh boy.

[pak9rabid]

This is the beginning of a series of lawsuits we will be seeing from The Beast as they slowly but surely die. It will be a painful death not only for Microsoft, but as well as everyone around them. Hang on, it's going to be a wild ride...

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