I love it when a blogger has enough gumption, chutzpah, and otherwise a sheer sense of ballsiness to call out their employer when they clearly do something wrong — as Don Dodge, a tech blogger of whom I have enormous respect for, has done for Microsoft.  And in Don’s case, he’s got a big pair of brass ones.  Good for him.

Long story short: Microsoft’s lawyers got on a giant soapbox today, and decided to orchestrate a poorly received PR move, wherein they ran their mouths about Microsoft’s online rival, Google.  They basically trotted out the same tired argument that Google’s nothing more than a petty thief as Google’s on a misguided crusade to scan thousands of copyrighted books.  Problem with that argument is that Google’s only copying snippets of books, which most copyright folks seem to agree falls within “fair use”.

Don Dodge hits the nail on the head with this one — its a case where lawyers are taking a public stand where they ought not to.  As legal counsel, their role is to debate the merits of the case in court, and not trot out company policy in the court of public opinion.