Google batters Microsoft's copyright assault

Microsoft on Tuesday launched fierce verbal attack on Web search giant Google, accusing its internet archrival of taking a "cavalier" attitude to copyright and deceiving customers for its own commercial benefit.

In a speech to the Association of American Publishers in New York, Thomas C. Rubin, Microsoft's associate general counsel, accused Google of unethically profiting from other people's work and taking a loose approach to the legal rights of copyright holders.

He said that in the name of organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful, the search giant is copying entire books into its database, often without the permission of copyright holders.

While addressing the audience of book publishers, Rubin said that Google "systematically violates copyright and deprives authors and publishers of an important avenue for monetizing their works," adding that "In doing so, it undermines critical incentives to create."

"Google takes the position that everything may be freely copied unless the copyright owner notifies Google and tells it to stop," he said.

Before criticizing Google’s position on copyright at a publishing industry conference, Rubin, who oversees copyright and intellectual property issues for Microsoft, early same day pointed out Google’s faults in a newspaper editorial.

Microsoft’s forceful verbal assaults that especially weighed on Google Book Search and YouTube video website, which Google acquired last year for $1.65bn, come as Google faces legal pressure from a lot of media companies over the way in which it uses books, video and news on its website.

Microsoft, the world's largest software company which is increasingly competing with Google in business software and other areas, said that a number of Google's services showed a disregard for rights owners.

The Association of American Publishers is already indulged in a legal battle with online search engine giant. It filed a lawsuit against Google in October 2005 claiming that the Mountain View, California based company infringed copyright law by scanning and distributing books protected under copyright law. A trial is likely to take place by next year.

Firmly rejecting Redmond company’s accusations, Google said that as committed it complies with copyright laws and reiterates what it considers benefits of its services.

In response to Microsoft’s assault, Google said it helped copyright holders gain more exposure for their work.

"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," Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond said in a statement yesterday. "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."

The recent accusations intensify the bitter war between Google and the software giant Microsoft, who have been locked in an escalating battle over Internet and office software supremacy.