Microsoft Attacks Google Over Book Search
Microsoft launched an unusually caustic public broadside yesterday against Google, accusing its archrival of running roughshod over copyrights as it creates an online service for searching books.</br></br>Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association of Publishers in New York, Thomas C. Rubin, Microsoft's associate general counsel, devoted much of his remarks to an attack on Google's practice of copying entire books into its database, often without the permission of copyright holders.</br></br>"It systematically violates copyright and deprives authors and publishers of an important avenue for monetizing their works," Rubin said, according to prepared remarks. "In doing so, it undermines critical incentives to create."</br></br>Microsoft's salvo came as the software giant faces mounting pressure from Google, which is increasingly extending its reach beyond the Web search that made it the darling of the technology industry.</br></br>Last month, Google began selling an online productivity suite, including e-mail, calendar and Web services, that competes with Microsoft's Office software. Google also continues to extend its substantial lead over Microsoft in Web searching, an area where Microsoft has struggled and that remains the main way users navigate the Internet.