Software giant Microsoft on Tuesday launched a stinging attack on Google, accusing its internet rival of riding roughshod over copyright in a rush to grab content for its own commercial benefit.
The attack by top Microsoft lawyer Tom Rubin came as the two corporate titans step up their competition in both software and online content.
But Google won support from the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which argued that Microsoft had given an ”unfortunate mischaracterisation” of copyright law that was outdated in the digital age.
Google ”appears to be trying wherever possible to skirt copyright law’s boundaries”, Rubin, Microsoft’s associate general counsel for intellectual property, wrote in a Financial Times opinion piece.
His remarks were a foretaste of a speech he was to make in New York later on Tuesday to the Association of American Publishers.
‘Unilateralist approach’
Microsoft is working ”to collaborate with copyright holders in developing technologies” to uphold copyright, without which ”no artist or writer — and no society that aspires to a living culture — can thrive”, Rubin wrote.
Google, in contrast, is guilty of a ”unilateralist approach” by scanning books ”by the truckload” without the permission of writers or publishers.
In 2005, Google launched a controversial project to digitalise millions of books on the shelves of libraries around the world.
Rubin called Google’s goal of compiling a vast database of indexed literature, accessible from anywhere, ”a worthy goal”. But he stressed: ”This project may well bring significant commercial advantage to Google. By contrast, those who own the copyrights in these works would gain little or nothing from Google’s plan.”
The Microsoft lawyer noted that Google faces a copyright minefield following its acquisition of the fast-growing video-sharing website YouTube.
And he dismissed the internet company’s justification of its book scanning as ”fair use” under United States copyright law, calling it a ”novel” interpretation that would stretch to countries where the fair use concept is not even recognised.
Under fire
Google has been coming under mounting fire from content providers over its interpretation of fair use.
Agence France-Presse has sued Google in both France and the US, alleging the internet search engine includes the agency’s headlines, news summaries and photographs without permission on its ”Google News” portal.
Last month, a court in Belgium found against Google in a similar copyright case brought by Belgian newspapers.
The ruling, which Google is appealing, was closely followed by the global media industry as a potential precedent over the use of copyright by digital media.
CCIA president Ed Black, however, said Microsoft and others have to update their thinking in an era where content is fast shifting from the print to the online world.
”Microsoft would do well to consider that its own business depends on fair use before brushing aside that important doctrine,” he also said, arguing that Microsoft’s software programmers are covered by this protection ”when reverse-engineering competitors’ products”.
Both Google and Microsoft are members of the CCIA.
Meanwhile, in a direct challenge to the company co-founded by Bill Gates, Google is now selling an online suite of business software that is available to companies for a $50 annual fee. — Sapa-AFP