Technology

The business and culture of our digital lives,
from the L.A. Times

Category: Blogging

If you publish with iBooks Author, does Apple 'own' you?

Apple iBooks Author on an iMac, and an iBook on an iPad

This week Apple announced a new textbook App called iBooks 2, as well as iBooks Author, a new book publishing app that allows normal people with little to no coding know-how to create impressive ebooks complete with photo galleries, video, 3-D images and other super cool graphic elements. 

Nothing too controversial there, right? Wrong. By Thursday afternoon, tech bloggers began to complain  about a clause in iBook Author's End User Licence Agreement that restricts how resulting ebooks can be sold, and by Friday the torrent of anger reached a fever pitch.

Here's the offending statement as it appears in the iBooks Author "About" box: "IMPORTANT NOTE: If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a “Work”), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple."

In other words, Apple invites you to use its publishing software to do some really cool stuff that most of us could never dream of doing on our own, all for free. Just know that if you decide to sell what you've made, Apple will most likely get a cut of the profits.

Whether this is an unprecedented and gross abuse of power on Apple's part, or simply the company's way of making money off its new software, has been a hot topic of debate in the blogosphere.

In a scathing story headlined "iBooks Author: You Work For Apple Now," PCmag.com's Sascha Segan expressed his outrage over the clause in no uncertain terms.

"With iBooks Author, Apple just made a hideous play to kill authors' rights over their work," he writes. Adding later, "Apple owns the creative process of anyone who uses the tool. If you're looking to create an iBook, you've just given Apple total distribution control over your work. That's as good as partial ownership."

But Paul Carr, writing on the blog PandoDaily.com came to Apple's defense. Sort of. "Apple has released iBooks Author for free with one goal -- to get more books into the iBooks store," he writes. "By taking a cut from all of the paid-for books produced in that way, they stand to make more than enough money to justify giving away the tools involved."

He adds that we are of course free to boycott Apple's new software if we don't like the terms of its agreement. "There are a hundred other ways to produce ebooks, and there are a half dozen other platforms on which to sell them. Pick one," he writes. "But we won’t. We’ll pick Apple, and we’ll like it. Because this is Apple, and that’s what we do."

ALSO:

Apple says iBooks 2 app reinvents textbooks

'The Numberlys' app for the iPad: Storytelling of the future

Apple's iBooks 2, iBooks Author: Bids to own publishing's future

-- Deborah Netburn

Photo: Apple's iBook Author app on an iMac, and an iBook on an iPad. Credit: Apple

Bloggers in China sound off on SOPA blackout

Bloggers in China sound off on SOPA blackout

Watching from China, where Web censorship is practically a national hallmark, some can't help but smirk and crack jokes about the controversy raging over Internet freedom in the U.S.

"Now the U.S. government is copying us and starting to build their own firewall," wrote one micro-blogger, relating China's chief censorship tool to the U.S. plan to block sites that trade in pirated material.

The Relevant Organs, an anonymous Twitter account (presumably) pretending to be the voice of the Chinese communist leadership, quipped: "Don't understand the hoopla over Wikipedia blackout in the U.S. today. We blacked it out here years ago. Where are OUR hugs?"

PHOTOS: Sites on strike against SOPA and PIPA

Humor aside, the brouhaha has generated some strong opinions in the country that  Google fled, not the least because opponents of the SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills are conjuring Chinese Web censorship to promote their case.

The consensus here, however, appears to be this: Americans should try a minute in our shoes before invoking online Armageddon.

Continue reading »

Obama 2012 campaign heads to Tumblr

barackobama.tumblr.com

When Barack Obama was elected president of the United States in 2008, his use of social media was among one of the many contributors to his win.

Twitter, Facebook, blogging -- Obama's campaign team had all that covered to help him build a ground swell of support that his rivals at that time couldn't match, particularly with younger voters online. The Technology blog even described Obama as "the first social media President."

Now, with the 2012 election a little more than a year away and Obama far less popular according to polls, the president's campaign team is looking for a reelection and looking for voters on Tumblr.

The "tumblog" Barackobama.tumblr.com launched on Monday with a simply named post titled "Hi Tumblr."

Hello indeed. Tumblr launched in 2007 and has gone from a blogging upstart, challenging the likes of heavyweights such as Google's Blogger and WordPress, to grow into a significant social media and blogging platform in its own right.

More than 11.4 billion posts have been published to tumblogs and the network's traffic on the U.S. has about tripled over the last year according to Tumblr President John Maloney.

Obama's campaign staff (there's no name of attribution on the first, second or third posts) wrote that the reason it decided to launch a Tumblr site was because the New York-based blogging platform offers "an opportunity to create something that's not just ours, but yours, too." Well, yours if you're an Obama supporter.

"We'd like this Tumblr to be a huge collaborative storytelling effort -- a place for people across the country to share what's going on in our respective corners of it and how we're getting involved in this campaign to keep making it better," the post said. "It's possible because of Tumblr's submission feature."

Tumblr users can submit questions to the campaign, a few paragraphs about why their supporting the incumbent, photos on the campaign trail and yes, Obama 2012 is encouraging reblogging content from its tumblog.

"There will be trolls among you: this we know," the first post says. "We ask only that you remember that we're people -- fairly nice ones -- and that your mother would want you to be polite." 

Polite? In politics? Imagine that. So far, we've yet to find any Republican candidates on Tumblr, though it's likely only a matter of time before someone gives it a shot. If you've seen any GOP hopefuls officially on Tumblr, sound off in the comments and we'll update this post and list them here as well.

RELATED:

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Obama: Steve Jobs among 'greatest of American innovators'

Tumblr Button allows sharing from websites to Tumblr with many options

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Image: A screen shot of Barackobama.tumblr.com. Credit: Obama for America

Michael Arrington has a new blog, scolds TechCrunch editor

Michael Arrington's Facebook profile photo

Michael Arrington may be out of TechCrunch and AOL, but that doesn't mean he'll stop blogging.

Arrington, who founded the TechCrunch blog as an angel investor in 2005, announced on Twitter on Thursday morning that he'll be going out on his own for now, tweeting:

"I'll be launching my new (personal) blog in a couple of days."

Paul Carr, a freelance writer for TechCrunch and author, responded to Arrington asking if he can get in on the new personal blog, tweeting:

"@arrington can I write the weekend posts on your tumblr?"

Arrington wrote back on Twitter, poking fun at AOL's head of online content, Arianna Huffington, and TechCrunch's new top editor, Erick Schonfeld.

"@paulcarr I'm not sure the journo police will allow that. Will ask Erick to ask Arianna if that's ok."

Carr might not be simply joking about following Arrington to his new blog eventually. The writer lashed out at AOL and its CEO Tim Armstrong, in a post on TechCrunch, for its handling of criticism that was directed toward Arrington and TechCrunch when Arrington and Armstrong announced the formation of a venture fund called CrunchFund.

It was Arrington's involvement in CrunchFund (he's running it) that cost him his job at TechCrunch as co-editor with Schonfeld. AOL had said that its tech reporters can't also be tech investors. AOL, however, is the main investor in Arrington's CrunchFund.

The back-and-forth between Carr and Arrington isn't the first time the TechCrunch founder has criticized AOL, which bought TechCrunch in Sept. 2010 for as much as $40 million, and his former co-editor Schonfeld since the break-up.

On Monday, at AOL's TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Arrington appeared on stage wearing a green T-shirt printed with the text "unpaid blogger." The T-shirt was a jab at AOL and Huffington, which after announcing he was fired from his job as TechCrunch's co-editor said he might contribute as an unpaid writer from time to time. A photo of Arrington in that T-shirt is his Facebook profile picture.

On Wednesday, Schonfeld named the finalists in a start-up competition at the Disrupt conference in a TechCrunch blog post. In naming the finalists, Schonfeld added in a few sentences trying to make clear Arrington's involvement in the process or lack there of, writing:

(In the spirit of disclosure, two of the companies, Bitcasa and Prism Skylabs, are CrunchFund investments, but we didn't hold that against them. Along with the other finalists, the judges scored them the highest. The CrunchFund is Michael Arrington's new venture fund. He was not involved in the final selection of these companies).

Arrington, in a comment on that blog post, said that Schonfeld wasn't being honest about his involvement in the process of selecting the finalists.

Erick, I'm still an Aol employee through tomorrow (15th). Also, as you know I had significant input into this list of finalists and spoke to Heather for over an hour last night about them. My final list is somewhat different from this one, though, but we agree on four of the companies.

Please be careful making statements on my behalf. And remember that reader trust is what matters. You shouldn't say "he was not involved in the final selection of these companies" just because it sounds nice. Since it isn't true, you shouldn't say it at all.

Also, going forward, I don't know if I'll be disclosing our investments to TechCrunch.

On Thursday, Barry Diller, chairman of InterActiveCorp., which owns 50% of the Newsweek/Daily Beast, said that AOL's firing of Arrington for investing in tech start-ups was a move that robbed TechCrunch of its unique voice, which was Arrington's voice.

Here's a transcript of Diller's statement, as reported by TechCrunch:

You buy it because it is absolutely the voice of a single person primarily, with some other people working for him -- but it's Michael Arrington's voice, and you know when you buy it, that that voice is biased and mean and capable of saying anything, and is playing a hundred different games. And you know that. And that's why you buy it — because it's a good voice, and you like it. This is, to me, the definition of that rocket going up and then getting underneath…

And then somebody calls you up and says, "I'm the Editor in Chief, and you can't let him do that, because he’s now in a conflict of interest."

Instead of saying, "Shut up and go back to your room"… and it's not because you don't respect journalism, it's because this has nothing to do with that. To apply that standard to something where the guy says, "I'm filled with conflicts. You don't have to listen, you don't have to read me. Take the stuff for whatever it’s worth."

It’s not a journalistic enterprise, TechCrunch. And so to have treated it as such is to destroy it. So now, he's gone, and now they own this thing, which has no voice. Congratulations. What a good piece of business.

RELATED:

TechCrunch writer takes on AOL CEO Tim Armstrong

Michael Arrington: Ex-TechCrunch, and now ex-AOL employee, too

TechCrunch blogger Mike Arrington starts CrunchFund venture capital firm

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Image: A screen shot of Michael Arrington's Facebook profile page. Credit: Michael Arrington / Facebook

Michael Arrington: Ex-TechCrunch, and now ex-AOL employee, too

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After two weeks of drama, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, Michael Arrington, is now officially out at the popular tech blog, and he's no longer an AOL employee.

AOL formally announced his departure on Monday in an emailed statement. Arrington too announced his exit from TechCrunch and AOL at the company's TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco on Monday, wearing a green T-shirt that read "unpaid blogger." The T-shirt was a jab at AOL, which after announcing he was fired from his job as TechCrunch's co-editor said he might contribute as an unpaid writer from time to time.

"The TechCrunch acquisition has been a success for AOL and for our shareholders, and we are very excited about its future," said Maureen Sullivan, an AOL spokeswoman, in an email to The Times. "Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, has decided to move on from TechCrunch and AOL to his newly formed venture fund. Michael is a world-class entrepreneur and we look forward to supporting his new endeavor through our investment in his venture fund. Erick Schonfeld has been named the editor of TechCrunch. TechCrunch will be expanding its editorial leadership in the coming months."

Schonfeld was Arrington's co-editor. Arrington explained the departure a little bit differently at TechCrunch Disrupt.

"It's no longer a good situation for me to stay at TechCrunch," Arrington said at the conference, according to a report from the website Business Insider. "Effective in a couple of days, I won't be an employee of TechCrunch or AOL. I will continue to run the CrunchFund and AOL will remain a partner in CrunchFund. I will continue to support this conference and TechCrunch over time."

Arrington's new venture fund is, of course, CrunchFund, the $20-million venture fund that is backed by many of Silicon Valley's most influential investors. AOL is CrunchFund's biggest investor.

It was the formation of the CrunchFund that kicked off the aforementioned drama that has led to Arrington's exit.

On Sept. 1, Arrington and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong excitedly announced that CrunchFund was a go and would invest in rising start-ups. CrunchFund, and Arrington's involvement in it, raised the ire of many on the blogosphere and mainstream media, citing possible ethical concerns over Arrington being a venture capitalist who could invest in some of the companies that TechCrunch itself covers.

On Sept. 2, AOL announced that Arrington was no longer a TechCrunch employee, but would still work for AOL in some capacity and occasionally blog for TechCrunch unpaid.

TechCrunch reporters were unhappy with how the matter -- which put a spotlight on TechCrunch's own ethical standards -- unfolded in the press, and they blogged about their frustration on TechCrunch itself, with an eye of anger toward AOL CEO Armstrong, who said the site had different editoral practices than other AOL publications.

After word leaked that Arrington was out at TechCrunch, Arrington issued an ultimatum to AOL stating that he would leave if the company didn't sell the blog back to him or let him keep his job as co-editor.

With Arrington out, questions now remain over how that will or won't affect TechCrunch's roster of reporters, some of whom have stated they'd leave if Arrington leaves.

RELATED:

TechCrunch writer takes on AOL CEO Tim Armstrong

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington issues ultimatum to AOL

TechCrunch blogger Mike Arrington starts CrunchFund venture capital firm

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Photo: Michael Arrington in 2008. Credit: Randi Lynn Beach / For The Times

Michael Arrington's fight with AOL over TechCrunch gets animated [Video]

Next Media Animation cartoon: Arianna Huffington vs. Tim Armstong vs. Michael Arrington at AOL over TechCrunch and CrunchFund

It was likely bound to happen.

Taiwan's Next Media Animation, the quirky company that makes odd videos of just about any big news story out there, has made a short depicting its take on the fight between Michael Arrington and AOL over the direction of the popular blog TechCrunch.

The dispute, which has been covered at The Times by my colleague Jessica Guynn since last week, centers around Arrington, TechCrunch's founder and co-editor, starting a venture capital fund called the CrunchFund. CrunchFund's biggest investor is AOL.

But AOL's policy is that its journalists can't also be venture capitalists. So Arrington was fired from AOL, which angered TechCrunch writers. And now, as pointed out in the video below, Arrington is threatening to quit a job he's already been fired from.

In the computer-animated video, Arrington wears a green coat and witch's hat and, at times, a choker with an AOL logo on it.

Later in the clip, he gets sprayed with paintballs held by gun-toting journalists calling him out on the ethical problems associated with being both a tech reporter and an tech investor.

Arianna Huffington, who oversees all of AOL's online content and is reportedly the person who decided to fire Arrington last week, appears in the video in flames over her anger at the situation.

Tim Armstrong, AOL's chief executive, is depicted as trying to protect Arrington from Huffington's anger and she kicks and punches the two men.

Yup, nobody tells a story quite like Next Media.

RELATED:

Michael Arrington issues ultimatum to AOL

TechCrunch writer takes on AOL CEO Tim Armstrong

AOL says Michael Arrington no longer works at TechCrunch

TechCrunch blogger Mike Arrington starts venture capital fund

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Top image: A screen shot of a flaming Arianna Huffington, president and editor in chief of AOL's Huffington Post Media Group; AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong; and a green-cloaked Michael Arrington. Credit: Next Media Animation

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington issues ultimatum to AOL

Arrington

Michael Arrington is slated to be in San Francisco next week for TechCrunch's Disrupt conference.

Disrupting is certainly an art that Arrington has mastered. And now he's giving his AOL overlords (and Arianna Huffington) the Imax version.

His ultimatum on Monday: that AOL restore editorial independence to the popular tech blog or sell TechCrunch back to Arrington, the newly minted venture capitalist (who apparently would need funding to buy it; might we suggest the CrunchFund). If not, Arrington says he'll quit (the job he was already ousted from).

TechCrunch's MG Siegler says that TechCrunch may formally dump Arrington on Monday. "TechCrunch is on the precipice," he wrote in a blog post on -- where else -- TechCrunch. All Things D's Kara Swisher, who has a sweet spot for the blogger she has dubbed Yertle, says Arrington is lobbying AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong (who famously told the New York Times that TechCrunch has different journalistic standards than the rest of AOL's media properties) to sell him back TechCrunch.

Arrington could not be reached for comment. Usually desperate for attention, AOL has clammed up even as this public relations nightmare marches into its second week with a fresh head of steam.

A recap: Last week Huffington bounced Arrington from TechCrunch after he and her boss, Armstrong, unveiled plans to launch a venture fund with a high-profile group of Silicon Valley investors, a move that Gawker calls hypocritical because Huffington has closed her eyes to other conflicts of interest.

Arrington and other TechCrunch writers are protesting; they say AOL promised TechCrunch editorial independence. AOL bought TechCrunch a year ago for $30 million.

On Monday, Arrington said he had just one magnet on his refrigerator: "No drama." (If not drama, perhaps comedy?)

"So," he deadpanned on Facebook, "don't say I didn't try."

Now all the tech world can do is wait for AOL's next move. And pass the popcorn.

RELATED:

TechCrunch writer takes on AOL CEO Tim Armstrong

AOL says Michael Arrington no longer works at TechCrunch

TechCrunch blogger Mike Arrington starts venture capital fund

-- Jessica Guynn

 Photo: Michael Arrington in 2008. Credit: Randi Lynn Beach / For The Times 

AOL says Michael Arrington no longer works at TechCrunch

Arrington

Like most every story about Michael Arrington, this one just got more complicated -- in less than 24 hours.

The latest: With the blogosphere burning up with questions about the ethics of having Arrington continue to be involved in TechCrunch while investing in start-ups alongside Silicon Valley's most powerful investors, AOL is now making a point of underscoring that he's out at TechCrunch and AOL's Huffington Post Media Group.

A recap: Arrington is the colorful personality behind TechCrunch, the mini media empire that he sold to AOL last year. He told us Thursday that he was starting a $20-million venture fund. He said his new title at TechCrunch would be founding editor and writer. In that role, he said he would not exert editorial control and would fully disclose his investments in blog posts on TechCrunch.

Arrington also told us he would continue to break news. He even inserted a clause in the venture fund's limited partnership agreement that gives him carte blanche to report on anything he learns except as an investor. 

But on Friday AOL began putting out the word that Arrington no longer works for TechCrunch. Instead, AOL says, he works for AOL Ventures as a professional investor. In that role, he could contribute unpaid blog posts to TechCrunch. 

Now that is pretty much what AOL has said all along. But its CEO Tim Armstrong told the New York Times on Thursday "TechCrunch is a different property and they have different standards."

Those standards seem to be a moving target. We cannot reach spokespeople at AOL or the Huffington Post to clarify exactly what those standards are and if Arrington works there or not.

AOL spokeswoman Maureen Sullivan told All Things D's Peter Kafka that Arrington's relationship with TechCrunch is "still to be determined, and it's important to make sure that Arianna [Huffington] is super comfortable with that relationship. ... I think that everyone is going to be very careful that there isn’t influence on coverage."

Arrington, who has a knack for becoming the story, also could not be reached for comment. He told the New York Times early Friday: "I have no idea what AOL's final position on this will be."

AOL's new position on Arrington seems to be the one recommended by one of Arrington's chief critics, All Things D's Kara Swisher.

"In fact, the creation of a $20-million investment kitty that Arrington has dubbed CrunchFund is simply the formalization of a long-standing arrangement that has already been going on since he founded his popular tech blog.

"That is to say, in which the basic standards of journalism are first warped by calling it newfangled truth-telling and then endlessly corroded by using a wily and unusually aggressive combination of favors and threats to extract, from start-ups and VCs in need of press, both exclusive access and information.

"And now, inevitably, money.

"This could have been a lot cleaner, of course, by Arrington simply resigning from TechCrunch, becoming a VC and perhaps starting a new blog where his agenda is much clearer...."

RELATED:

TechCrunch blogger Mike Arrington starts venture fund

AOL is buying TechCrunch blog

His clout in Silicon Valley gets White House hopefuls talking

-- Jessica Guynn

Photo: Michael Arrington in 2008. Credit: Randi Lynn Beach / For The Times 

Is it dumb to let a 2-year-old wield a smartphone?

Toddlers_at_home_with_an_iPad

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details.

GenY moms are starting 'em out young: A third of their 2-year-olds are already at home with smartphones, laptops and even digital cameras.

Gen X moms -- a little older, but also tech-savvy -- are just a tad behind. Just under 30% of their offspring have used a laptop by age 2, and 18% and 20% are comfortable with a digital camera and smartphone, respectively.

These results were among the highlights of a joint study released this week by the BlogHer publishing network and Parenting magazine, and released as BlogHer holds its seventh annual conference. Of the 1,038 women polled, 90% have children under the age of 10. Questions drilled down on the use of technology in the lives of the women, and their children.

"The kids are not potty trained yet, but are using laptops, smartphones. Digital cameras as well. It's just amazing to see the rate at which kids are being exposed to those devices at an early age, and what it's doing and changing our role as parents," said Lynne Fleck-Seitz of Verizon, who moderated a panel held at the BlogHer annual conference Friday afternoon in San Diego titled, "The Tie that Binds Parent and Child."

But even if it's not a 2-year-old showing adults how to use an iPad, "our kids are plugged in at a much younger age," Catherine McManus of The Parenting Group added.

Continue reading »

Google and Microsoft trade public punches over 'patent attack'

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In this round, Google swung first with a blog post. Then Microsoft came back with a combo of a tweet and an email.

But Google is staying on its feet -- no knockdown here.

After taking it on the chin a bit, Google returned to that first-punch of a blog post and put a bit more weight behind it by way of an update with yet more unfriendly words.

Seemingly undeterred, Microsoft responded with a series of tweets -- we'll think of them as jabs.

Is this a tech version of the epic 1970s fights between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier (pictured above)?

Not yet. But we're sure watching to see who'll throw the next punch.

Google's first swing

On Wednesday, Google's top lawyer, David Drummond, wrote a blog post titled "When Patents Attack Android" in which he accused Microsoft -- along with Apple and Oracle -- of launching "a hostile, organized campaign" that seeks to "strangle" the tech giant's Android mobile OS, which is the most popular operating system worldwide.

And the biggest weapon in this fight, Drummond said, are patents.

"Patents were meant to encourage innovation," he said "but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it," citing the team-up of Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Research in Motion and EMC in their $4.5-billion purchase of the highly coveted Nortel mobile patents.

"Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other's throats, so when they get into bed together you have to start wondering what's going on," Drummond wrote.

Microsoft's combo: tweets and an email

In response to Drummond's post, Microsoft lawyer Brad Smith wrote on Twitter:

Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no.

A heck of a tweet, essentially refuting Drummond's entire post. But it didn't end there.

Frank X. Shaw, who identifies himself on Twitter as the "currently lead corporate communications for microsoft" and a "longtime social media participant," sent a tweet of his own addressing Drummond's Google blog post.

Free advice for David Drummond – next time check with Kent Walker before you blog.

And in that tweet, Shaw also attached a screen shot of an email sent to Brad Smith of Microsoft from Kent Walker, a senior vice president and lawyer at Google, which was sent Oct. 28, 2010. The screen shot reads:

Brad –

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you -- I came down with a 24-hour bug on the way back from San Antonio. After talking with people here, it sounds as though for various reasons a joint bid wouldn't be advisable for us on this one. But I appreciate your flagging it, and we’re open to discussing other similar opportunities in the future.

I hope the rest of your travels go well, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

– Kent

Google's second swing

But Drummond didn't throw in the towel after that. Instead, he went back to the blog post that started the back-and-forth and on Thursday, added an update, that said:

It's not surprising that Microsoft would want to divert attention by pushing a false "gotcha!" while failing to address the substance of the issues we raised. If you think about it, it's obvious why we turned down Microsoft's offer. Microsoft's objective has been to keep from Google and Android device-makers any patents that might be used to defend against their attacks. A joint acquisition of the Novell patents that gave all parties a license would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners. Making sure that we would be unable to assert these patents to defend Android -- and having us pay for the privilege -- must have seemed like an ingenious strategy to them. We didn't fall for it.

Ultimately, the U.S. Department of Justice intervened, forcing Microsoft to sell the patents it bought and demanding that the winning group (Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, EMC) give a license to the open-source community, changes the DoJ said were "necessary to protect competition and innovation in the open source software community." This only reaffirms our point: Our competitors are waging a patent war on Android and working together to keep us from getting patents that would help balance the scales.

Microsoft throws a few more jabs

Shaw responded, firing off a series of tweets that said:

Hello again David Drummond. This is going to take a few tweets, so here we go. Let's look at what Google does not dispute in their reply.

We offered Google the opportunity to bid with us to buy the Nortel patents; they said no.

Why? BECAUSE they wanted to buy something that they could use to assert against someone else.

SO partnering with others & reducing patent liability across industry is not something they wanted to help do

If Drummond, or any other Google or Microsoft officials take to blog posts or Twitter -- or Google+ -- we'll keep you posted. But while this round of the fight is public (and thus maybe a bit unprofessional) this isn't the end or the beginning of spats between tech giants over mobile technology.

Billions of dollars are at stake, and suits seem to be filed between the behemoth companies with regularity.

What may matter most, in the end, is which phone consumers like you end up with in your pocket or purse -- an Android phone, an Apple iPhone, a Windows Phone handset or a device from any of their competitors.

RELATED:

Google accuses Apple, Microsoft of waging patent war

Oracle wants to question Google's Larry Page in Android patent lawsuit

Apple, Microsoft group's $4.5-billion bid on Nortel patents approved by courts

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Photo: Heavyweight boxer Joe Frazier grimaces after Muhammad Ali lands a blow to Frazier's head during their heavyweight bout in Manila on Oct. 1, 1975. Ali won the fight after Frazier's manager stopped the fight in the 14th round. Credit: Associated Press

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