MPAA pays State AGs and media to attack Google

[fjtorres]

From Techdirt:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...k-google.shtml

For those that might not be aware, Sony's networks were recently hacked.
Yet again.
Not terribly big news by itself. But this time the (north korean?) hackers have publicly released a lot of what they stole, revealing all sorts of Sony and industry secrets. In this case, elected official shenanigans, media quid pro quos and bribery, and dirty negotiating tactics.

Nothing we haven't seen before.

But in the last few days, some of the leaks from the Sony Pictures hack have revealed the depths of that hatred, raising serious questions about how the MPAA abuses the legal process in corrupt and dangerous ways. The most serious charge -- unfortunately completely buried by this report at The Verge -- is that it appears the MPAA and the major Hollywood studios directly funded various state Attorneys General in their efforts to attack and shame Google.

In the past, we've written about state Attorneys General from Nebraska and Oklahoma blaming Google for videos made by users, and about Texas' Attorney General going after Google for supposed antitrust violations (based on the same claims that the FTC later dropped entirely). But the state Attorney General with the biggest chip on his shoulder for Google has absolutely been Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, who seemed to think that it was Google's fault that he could find counterfeit goods via search. A few months later, he was back blaming Google for infringement online as well.

This was no accident. What's come out of the Sony Pictures Leak is not just that the MPAA was buddying up to state Attorneys General, but that the MPAA was funding some of this activity and actively supporting the investigation. The leaked emails reveal that rather than seeing that NY Times article about corporate/AG corruption as a warning sign, the MPAA viewed it as a playbook. But not for preventing investigations but for encouraging and funding them. This appears to go way beyond that NY Times article. This isn't campaign donations or inviting AGs to speak at lavish events and paying for the travel. This is flat out paying AGs to investigate Google (even on issues unrelated to copyright infringement) and then promising to get extra press attention to those articles.

What seems to come out from these emails is that the MPAA, in coordination with the major Hollywood studios, agreed to willfully pay tons of money indirectly to state AGs (and Hood in particular) to get them to investigate Google (using the time and labor of the MPAA's favorite law firm -- and the one that Fabrizio just left). That goes way beyond anything discussed in that NY Times articles, and certainly smacks of serious illegality. It's difficult to see how this isn't bribing a public official to attack a company they dislike.

And beyond that, the MPAA is showing that part of its plan is to fund "media stories based on" the Attorneys General investigations. Remember, so much AG activity these days is driven by what's going to get them into the headlines. Setting aside nearly $100,000 from the MPAA to get a state AG some headlines for an investigation paid for by the MPAA, using administrative subpoenas written by the MPAA... all designed to attack a company they don't like (which actually has done pretty much exactly what they'd been asking for in downranking sites that lead to infringing works), is really stunning.

To them, maybe. Some of us have seen worse.

The objective of these old media companies is, as usual, to use government goveand old media power to harass and coerce the target company to get it to hamper its own business to benefit *them*. They don't (yet) deliver horse heads to people's beds but the idea is the same.

A lot of detail (and further links) at the hyperventilating source.

As for the Sony Hack itself, here's a quickie wrap up of some of the hijinks of those wild and crazy guys:

http://www.cnet.com/news/13-revelati...the-sony-hack/

Again, nothing shocking to those who've been around a while.
It's just business as usual, only instead of Microsoft or Amazon, the target du jour is Google.

[Ninjalawyer]

I have to wonder what this sort of strategy gains the MPAA members in the long run. Obviously their paying out the money to try and enhance their negotiating position with Google and maybe get some friendly laws passed where they can, but it seems like a much better bet would be investing in new products and services that leverage what the Internet can provide.

As for the source, I like Techdirt, but some of their writers are prone to some pretty severe histrionics at times.

[Apache]

And now Sony Lawyers have sent letters to the major news outlets talking lawsuit if they continue to publish stolen data.
Apache

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

I have to wonder what this sort of strategy gains the MPAA members in the long run. Obviously their paying out the money to try and enhance their negotiating position with Google and maybe get some friendly laws passed where they can, but it seems like a much better bet would be investing in new products and services that leverage what the Internet can provide.

As for the source, I like Techdirt, but some of their writers are prone to some pretty severe histrionics at times.

Maybe the bigger players foresee their long run paralleling that of the music industry and publishing.

Digital filming gets higher quality and cheaper every year. Home viewing technology gets better, then just cheaper...then better again. Eventually the cost of entry barrier will collapse.

So short and medium term payoffs now may be considered better than investing entirely in a future that will likely have a whole lot more competition. And any barriers that might make it harder to find out what products are out there disproportionately affects the new players.

[fjtorres]

Well, Google went public and counterattacked:
http://www.cnet.com/news/google-accu...-the-internet/

Google attacked Hollywood and a state attorney general for attempting to achieve the goals of years-old Internet censorship law.

The search giant said the Motion Picture Association of America, Hollywood's primary lobbying arm, secretly conspired with the attorney general of Mississippi to force changes to the trade of information on the Internet without enacting new laws.

"The MPAA pointed its guns at Google," the company's General Counsel Kent Walker said in a blog post Thursday. He cited emails reported to have come from Sony's top executives by The Verge, detailing an effort to block websites alleged to publish copyrighted material. Walker also said that a letter sent by Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood accusing Google of numerous misdeeds was drafted by the MPAA's longtime law firm.

[eschwartz]

Wait... Hollywood trying to censor the internet? What ELSE is new???

I mean, they have only been trying to embed the tentacles of DRM into our browsers,... aided and abetted by Google (among others) of course.
https://defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5