Microsoft vs. Google – Patentmania is on!

Alright, so we had Bloggermania last month, now the Financial Times (and others via Techmeme) are reporting that Microsoft is going to "attack" Google on copyright issues regarding their book, music and film products. It seems to be a good time for a ground assault since YouTube is facing some stiff times with many major media producers pulling out of negotiations and some demanding YT take down their media.

Years ago, one of my law professors once said something like, "You can beat your competition two ways: you can innovate and create a better product OR you can sue them."

Chip Griffin says, "Ultimately, copyright law ought to enable fair use — such use to be defined as less than X number of words or Y percentage of a work.  Existing tests simply leave too much gray area."

Mike at Techdirt goes on to say, "But the arguments are incredibly weak, and can be equally applied to Microsoft. It also ignores increasing evidence (as was predicted) that Google's book scanning project is actually helping to sell more books. So the whole situation reflects incredibly poorly on Microsoft. "

Danny Sullivan has an excellent dissection of the entire Microsoft argument. This is my 2nd entrant into POST OF THE YEAR.