Microsoft, obviously more nervous than ever about the sheer marketing power wielded by Google and Amazon, has decided to fight fire with fire, or rather, books with books.
Google recently entered into what will most likely be a series of legal battles by launching Google Print, a service that indexes the full text of thousands of books but only displays abstracts of the full content.
Publishers have been enraged by Google’s program and it has been suggested that Google is likely to wind up in the Supreme Court defending its right to use books in this way.
Amazon’s book content offensive will be in two parts: Amazon Pages will allow users to purchase individual pages or chapters of books for immediate online delivery while Amazon Upgrade will provide online access to the contents of purchased hard copy books.
Microsoft, not wanting to be outmaneuvered in what is obviously becoming a hot potential business area, has countered by swinging a deal with the venerable British Library to scan 100,000 books from the catalog and put all of them on-line in searchable form. Microsoft, as befits a company that sets great store in abiding by copyright because of their own problem with software pirates, will ensure that unlike Google they will have no legal problems by getting clearance for all titles that are still under copyright.
