Microsoft attacks Google on books
Microsoft is to launch an attack on Google, saying the search giant's rival book-scanning service "systematically violates copyright". — Since December, Microsoft's project - Live Search Books - has allowed users to access certain publications which were no longer under copyright.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the escalation of a rivalry Microsoft has been building since late 2005, when it joined the Open Content Alliance's book-scanning plan as an explicit counter to Google Print, and then declared its intent to trounce Google outright. The vehicle today is Thomas C. Rubin, Microsoft's associate general counsel, addressing the Association of American Publishers — the same constituency Google's Library Project most antagonized.
First-order effects
- Google comes under direct legal-political pressure from the publishing establishment, with Microsoft accusing it of exploiting books, music, films and television programmes without permission and calling its approach 'cavalier'.
- Microsoft's own Live Search Books, live since December 2005-era planning and shipping only public-domain works, is positioned as the copyright-clean alternative for publishers deciding whether to cooperate or fight.
Second-order effects
- Publishers gain a well-funded ally willing to make copyright enforcement a competitive weapon, shifting their calculus from litigation alone toward licensing deals with Microsoft while Google absorbs the reputational cost.
- The attack frames copyright compliance as a differentiator across all media — music, film and TV are explicitly named — raising the stakes for every platform that indexes third-party creative work without explicit permission.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, mass-digitization projects split into two camps: opt-in licensed archives backed by rights holders versus full-library scans defended under fair-use claims, with the courts ultimately arbitrating which model defines the digital library.
- Copyright becomes a standing front in the search-engine wars rather than merely a legal question — incumbents attacking rivals' content practices as a proxy for competing on index quality.
The trend: Book digitization is hardening into a two-model contest between permission-based archives like Microsoft's Live Search Books and fair-use-style mass scanning like Google's, with rights holders courted as allies by whichever engine wants the moral high ground.