14 DAY TRIAL // Unlike Google, Microsoft set up on the strenuous path to respect intellectual property. This is in fact the message that the Redmond Company is sending out when it comes to adding copyrighted materials in the services under the Windows Live brand umbrella. And nothing spells out the differences between Microsoft and Google as their respective strategies when it comes to copyrighted books being added to the two company's search engines.
Google's initiative indicated little to no concerns for the actual owners of the copyrights. The Mountain View company debuted a massive project for digitizing traditional books and including them into Google Book search with no regard for intellectual property. Microsoft, not wanting to fall even farther behind Google in the area of search, also introduced Live Search Books, a service dedicated to delivering access to digital copies of books.
The one detail that irremediably separates Google and Microsoft is the fact that the Redmond Company has sought and received permission for all the copyrighted materials it has added to its book search engine. Google did not. Microsoft announced that it too will expand the Live book search engine to include copyrighted works, but that for all the titles indexed it has the express permission of the owners.
In this manner, Microsoft has ensured that it will avoid the legal hassles Google is currently facing for its failure to obtain permission from copyright owners. McGraw-Hill Companies, Simon & Schuster, and Yale University Press are just a few of the publishers that have rallied behind Microsoft's Live Search Books initiative. Danielle Tiedt, general manager of the Live Search selection team was reluctant to reveal the actual number of books Microsoft indexed, but she did point to a figure of tens of thousands. Live Search Books was launched officially back in December 2006.