Microsoft Reacts to Google’s ‘Cavalier’ Attitude
March 7th, 2007 by pamela
Microsoft and Google are in the midst of a war of words as Bill Gates’ behemoth accused Google of adopting a ‘cavalier’ attitude to copyright laws, criticising Google’s use of books, TV, films and music without seeking permission.
Google has earned millions from the use of intellectual property to which they did not have rights, a situation to be discussed by Tom Rubin, associate general counsel at Microsoft, at a presentation to the Association of American Publishers in New York yesterday.
Rubin was slated to state: “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.”
“Google takes the position that everything may be freely copied unless the copyright owner notifies Google and tells it to stop.”
Google has come under fire from various media sources of late, with YouTube in particular causing copyright issues when Google was forced to remove over 100,000 videos as a result of moves by Viacom.
A Google spokesman hit back, saying that the accusations were groundless, and that Google actively helped copyright holders’ work gain greater exposure.
According to the Guardian, Google’s spokesman sated that: “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.”
“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.”
However, Google seems to be a little isolated with this point of view. YouTube nemesis Viacom is being joined by other media giants to protest against Google’s flouting of copyright law – NBC Universal, Walt Disney, Time Warner and News Corporation are some of the company’s already working to stop Google’s misuse of intellectual property to which they did not have rights
This round is the latest in a series of events which has highlighted the competition between the rivals. Microsoft is slowly but surely stepping up its search facilities, while Google continues to launch web based office application designed to loosen Microsoft’s grip on software sales.
