The Only Game in Town: Why Microsoft is Wrong

At the Association of American Publishers' general annual meeting today in midtown Manhattan, Microsoft Corporation's Associate General Counsel Thomas Rubin took the opportunity to trot out an aggressive attack against the Google BookSearch initiative, claiming it violated the copyright of publishers. Microsoft's similarly natured LiveSearch program, he went on to say, was a better example of how "book search technology and copyright can peacefully co-exist."

I was fortunate to be sitting amidst that AAP audience that CNet claims was an "unusually receptive one" -- but I, for one, felt more than a little unreceptive to Rubin's obliqueness on the matter. From where I was sitting, it sounded more like a self-righteous sales pitch than a die-hard defense of the First Amendment. Worse yet, it was a sales pitch delivered by a lawyer, so we weren’t even given the benefit of flashy PowerPoint slides to distract us from the fistfuls of mud being thrown in Google’s direction.

Even before Rubin mentioned the search giant (and before I had read the morning papers, which had by that time already outlined Microsoft's position), it was clear to me that his mission would be to unleash an attack against Microsoft's only major competition in the race to scan the world's books. His remarks were heavy with phrases like "profit solely on the backs of others' content" and “what [Google] considers to be free” -- in spite of his assurance early on that what was about to follow was "not an attack.” As a professional speechwriter, these phrases -– delivered as they were in Rubin’s dry monotone -- stood out to me as crafty and transparent, and showed more desperation and rhetoric than credibility in the argument for why Microsoft’s product would be better.

In this writer’s opinion, Microsoft’s announcement today was a thinly veiled attempt to get American publishers in their corner while they slip in a few kidney punches on Google, hoping to slow down the market leader while Gates & Co. can start making more headway in the eBook space. And frankly, I'm a little disappointed in Microsoft -- though I can’t say I’m surprised.

Just a few hours before Rubin took the stage, Bruce Chizen, CEO of Adobe Systems, told the audience that Bill Gates' empire was the only thing that kept him up at night. Chizen (a much more fascinating and impassioned speaker than Rubin, for what it’s worth) called the software giant an “outright monopoly," and warned of their methods to stifle competition. And then, as if on cue, here comes Mr. Rubin with his remarks, outlining ways in which Microsoft's approach to scanning printed material is somehow better than Google's solely because, from what I can gather, it is Microsoft's.

I’m not saying Google is completely selfless or that they’ve nothing to benefit from their Book Search. But consider this: long before the company’s groundbreaking IPO, I heard from an inside source that Google executives had once rejected a substantial offer from Pepsi to advertise on the search engine’s home page – reportedly because kids drink too much soda these days. Now even if this is the corporate version of George Washington’s cherry tree folklore, I didn’t flinch when I heard it because I believe – even when trading at $457.55 a share – Google is a company with some sense of greater good. Microsoft, however, is a company that historically thwarts the efforts of its competition and, by extension, stifles market innovation.

It has been said that there are those who make revolutions, and those who make money from them. Google has undoubtedly taken an early lead in the book search revolution, and it’s up to publishers to work alongside them to determine how the money made in this initiative (and there will be lots of it) will be distributed.

Chris Steib is the editor in chief of VoidMagazine.com, an online literary publication and community for readers of all shapes and sizes. He doesn't own any Google stock, though he wishes he did.