Microsoft tosses a stink bomb at Google

They don’t usually send the lawyers in to do the dirty work, they usually come after to clean it up. But Microsoft’s Thomas C. Rubin, Associate General Counsel for Copyright, Trademark and Trade Secrets, today is expected to be out front ripping Google and its book-scanning project, saying the search company “systematically violates copyright.” In a speech scheduled for tonight, the contents of which are posted on Microsoft’s site, he says Google is cutting into the profits of authors and publishers. The speech is expected at the annual meeting of the Association of American Publishers in New York this evening. “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,” Rubin says. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Google and Microsoft are both scanning libraries’ worth of books, then making the tomes searchable on the Web, but the two companies take different approaches. Microsoft is scanning works no longer covered by copyright law, plus newer titles publishers give Microsoft explicit permission to use. The stated goal of Google’s Book Search project is to make a copy of every book ever published and bring it within Google’s vast database of indexed content, Rubin writes. While Google says that it doesn’t currently intend to place ads next to book search results, Google’s broader business model is straightforward – attract as many users as possible to its site by providing what it considers to be “free” content, then monetize that content by selling ads, he writes. Google’s program on the other hand has been the subject of several lawsuits by publishers and authors that say Google isn’t authorized to scan copyright books without first asking permission. Currently the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild, has a lawsuit going against Google over its book-scanning plans. To support its defense, Google in January subpoenaed information related to book scanning from Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon.com and other companies. “But Google’s track record of protecting copyrights in other parts of its business is weak at best,” wrote Rubin. “Anyone who visits YouTube, which Google purchased last year, will immediately recognize that it follows a similar cavalier approach to copyright.” YouTube has been repeatedly hit with lawsuits or demands that it remove content from its site. Most recently Viacom demanded that the popular video site remove all Viacom content from the site and Google complied. Viacom includes BET, Famous Music, MTV Networks – MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Comedy Central, CMT: Country Music Television, Spike TV, TV Land Paramount Pictures and Paramount Home Entertainment – a cornucopia of YouTube traffic-generating content. Google says it’s already reached licensing deals with some other entertainment providers including most recently an agreement with the British Broadcasting Corp. The BBC and its commercial subsidiary BBC Worldwide will create its own advertising-funded commercial “channels” on YouTube. That deal comes on the heels of revenue-sharing agreements YouTube has reached with other content providers, including Wind-up Records and the National Basketball Association, which plans its own NBA channel.