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The groundwork for the massive attack on Google Book Search as orchestrated by Microsoft's executives and PR handlers conveniently ignores Microsoft's tactics and history.

Fun With Microsoft's Anti-Google Rant

Gosh, where to begin? The full text of Tom Rubin, Associate General Counsel for Copyright, Trademark and Trade Secrets, Microsoft Corporation, offers a good starting point. Keep in mind the content of his "opportunity to speak" about copyright and book scanning was conveniently leaked to a number of news outlets. His address to the Association of American Publishers, a friendly party to Microsoft's own book scanning endeavors, criticizes Google in several places. After touting the Microsoft Library program, restricted to public domain or out-of-copyright works, not to mention the New York Times Reader, he tosses in a mention of the Da Vinci notebook exhibit presented online by the British Library and Bill Gates. It's enough to make you wonder why Google would threaten not just authors and publishers, but everyone who's ever created some form of art. Rubin brings out the chestnut of Google indexing books, including the works of several libraries that willingly agreed to participate in their Book Search. When Google started scanning works in and out of copyright, Rubin said, "Concocting a novel “fair use” theory, Google bestowed upon itself the unilateral right to make entire copies of copyrighted books not covered by these publisher agreements without first obtaining the copyright holder’s permission." But fair use doctrines do exist, and Google and Microsoft both enjoy their privileges every day when their search engines index online content. Did Steve Ballmer call up every webmaster and blogger when MSN/Windows Live bots hit their sites? Of course not, and it would be ludicrous to suggest he do so because fair use protects that usage. Every search company that has ever tried to address the issue of finding content has benefited from that. With a lot of content in books that people might not ever see, indexing them makes sense from an informational standpoint. If someone made a point in a 1957 work that would support someone's research in 2007, why should it be nigh-impossible to find? Rubin continues the anti-Google verbiage, including a little cheap shot over Google's ad dealings with some websites that offered pirated movies. He also brought YouTube into the discussion, claiming it demonstrated Google's inability to protect copyright. One question: can Rubin or any of the other Microsoft executives patting themselves on the back over their fawning little speech identify a single instance of someone assembling a whole work out of Google Book Search, and copying and distributing it? Waiting. Still waiting. May as well stop waiting, really. Rubin's got a better chance at leafing through Da Vinci's notebooks than he does of finding where this has happened. Back to the cheap shot. When it comes to appropriating someone else's work for profit, Microsoft has built quite a reputation for itself. They have been forced to settle lawsuits and otherwise be held to account for their grifting. How about Microsoft tucking Kerberos into Windows NT, then tweaking it so that other Kerberos clients, as in non-Windows ones, couldn't access it? How about that little patent infringement deal that found, by the way, Microsoft had incorporated data-linking technology it did not own, but profited handsomely from, into Office for several years? How about co-opting a nifty feature for Visual Studio that an academic had created, without crediting said creator? Microsoft would have gotten away with patenting it as theirs had it not become publicized. Authors and publishers, Microsoft has a long history. Before you wholeheartedly commit yours to Microsoft, learn more about theirs. ---