Microsoft’s Live Search Books Adds Copyrighted Content
Microsoft announced it will be adding in-copyrighted works to its Live Search Books as part of the company’s attempt to compete with rival book search offerings from Google. Microsoft says it has permission to scan and display books from publishers like McGraw-Hill, MIT Press, Oxford University Press, Simon & Schuster and more.
Microsoft has thus far managed to avoid some of the controversy that has plagued Google Books regarding copyright concerns. Both the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers have accused Google of infringing on copyrights, despite Google’s insistence that its book search qualifies as fair use.
Rather than presenting users with summary information as Google does with copyrighted works, Microsoft will offer actual content previews where it has permission to do so, though you’ll have to sign in to the site via a Windows Live ID. One nice feature is that the previews inform the user many pages are missing from each book.
Live Search will also include summaries and links to sites where the books can be purchased.
