Microsoft apparently is frightened by the free market. (With their software, who would blame them.) According to the Financial Times the company plans a major crusade against Google over its "cavalier" approach to copyrights. This is an interesting story. Regular BTP know that I consider copyright a very expensive form of protectionism which is an extremely inefficient way to support creative work. But the immediate issue is how far should the government should go in suppressing communication in order to maximize the value of copyrights. Google has adopted a policy where it makes part or all of copyrighted material available (e.g. books on Google Print), but removes the material if the copyright holder complains. This practice would seem to give copyright holders plenty of control. After all, if it is not worth their while to do a google search on their material and send an e-mail, how much money could be at stake? In an article of this length, it would have been appropriate for the FT to talk to an economist, or someone familiar with the economics of copyrights, so that they could have pointed out the economic costs of following Microsoft's strong copyright policy.
--Dean Baker
