Google Sues Mississippi Attorney General For Conspiring With Movie Industry

ideonexus writes: Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood has called for a "time out" in his perpetual fight with Google in response to the company filing a lawsuit against him for conspiring with the movie industry to persecute the search giant. Leaked Sony Pictures Entertainment emails and documents obtained under FOIA requests this week have exposed how the Motion Picture Association of America was colluding with and lobbying state prosecutors to go after Google, even going so far as to "assigned a team of lawyers to prepare draft subpoenas and legal briefs for the attorneys general" to make it easier for them to persecute the company. Here's the full complaint (PDF).

Comments

Re:You'd cheer were it Exxon instead of Google

[Crimey McBiggles]

This comment has so little context, it's asinine. Are you implying that the public favors lawsuits against oil companies over those confronting online piracy? If so, are you suggesting that the collateral damage caused by oil companies (such as damaging the environment) is greater than that caused by search companies (incidentally providing results that lead to downloads that violate copyright)?

Related article...

[QuietLagoon]

Lawyers Create Big Paydays by Coaxing Attorneys General to Sue

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Looks like the state Attorneys General are the newest benefactor of policital contributions in the ongoing purchasing of our government by special interests.

Re:Related article...

[Crashmarik]

You don't consider Lawyers the Ultimate Special Interest ?

haha

[Charliemopps]

I'm sorry, but as much as North Korea sucks, this hack just gets better and better...

Google’s effort to position itself as a defender of free speech is shameful. Freedom of speech should never be used as a shield for unlawful activities and the Internet is not a license to steal,” said Kate Bedingfield, an M.P.A.A. spokeswoman, in an emailed statement.

That statements so unbelievably ironic... Sony and the MPAA are trying to squash these very document releases with the same tactics they use to try and stop file sharing... but this time it's to hide their own collusion, racketeering, bribery and likely other violations of federal law. I wonder if the other inmates will appreciate her opinion that piracy is stealing when she's in the state pen...

Re:haha

[lucm]

this time it's to hide their own collusion, racketeering, bribery and likely other violations of federal law.

I wonder if the other inmates will appreciate her opinion that piracy is stealing when she's in the state pen

No, they will be too busy wondering how she ended up in the state pen for violation of federal law.

Re:haha

[bwcbwc]

Google is lobbying the AG's themselves, but they seem to be on the defensive. From Ars: http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

Several weeks later, a meeting took place between Google executives and Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen. The same morning the meeting took place, MPAA's Perrelli was informed about it by two attorneys at the AG's office, who offered to send Google's presentation to Perrelli. Jepsen reached out to the MPAA, seeking demands that he could press against Google.

The article makes clear that many AG offices seem to be favoring the MPAA side, even after hearing from Google. I'd be really interested to see a survey of who's funding election campaigns for all state AGs in the country. Follow the money and see what shows up.

Who cares? It's the state that time forgot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anybody even want to live in Mississippi? I'm pretty sure it's the worst state in the Union for a reason.

The rest of the country should just build a wall around it, and put all the politicians and lawyers there.

Re:You'd cheer were it Exxon instead of Google

[hawguy]

And between Exxon and Google, guess which one has a private jumbo jet for its executives...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

Exxon has at least 4 $50M Global Express and 4 $20M Challenger 500 jets.

The difference, of course, is that Google doesn't own their jets, they are owned by a separate LLC started by the founders that use the jets.

Re:You'd cheer were it Exxon instead of Google

[Trepidity]

If it were Exxon vs. the attorney general of Alabama, I'd be hoping for a way they could both lose...

Dear Mississippi

[Snufu]

How does it feel to know your tax dollars and elected representatives are being used to do the bidding of private motion picture conglomerates at the expense of regular citizens using the internet?

Re:Dear Mississippi

[Will.Woodhull]

There can be little question that what the USA needs now is another Teddy Roosevelt trust-buster. Big corporations-- and banks-- are exerting way too much influence on the USA's politics and marketplace. Time to do what T.R. did about100 years ago: use government to regulate Big Business so that the marketplace and politics can work the way the founding fathers intended. Instead of twisting governments-- state as well as federal-- to do what Big Business thinks is best for themselves.

I'm not sure that Saint Hilliary is earthy enough to get the job done. I'm not sure that Ms Warren has the skills and shrewdness of thought the work requires. Maybe they could combine forces.

What I am pretty sure of is we need a Mommy in the White House who can restore order in the nursery and rumpus room and do whatever enforcement is needed to get all the kids to play nicely with each other.

Another Chris Dodd faux pas

[Anonymous Coward]

The MPAA is led by disgraced former Senator Chris Dodd, famous for being on the take from Countrywide Mortgage as a "Friends of Angelo" Mozilo member in good standing. Wonder if this little project with the studios meets anti-trust law violation thresholds....

Hmmmm.... I'd want to sue his ass too.

[ogdenk]

Personally, I think if law enforcement, the civil courts and the MPAA don't have a right to force Google to do their jobs for them. I also think that due process for individuals still exists and the MPAA shouldn't have a right to tell Google to pull content without a court order or valid evidence.

So yeah, this guy kinda needs to be sued. Google has done nothing but try to balance the rights of these greedy bastards and the rights of individuals. Google has spent a ton of money to implement functionality just to help placate these morons while pissing off its user base.

And if people don't get their pirated content with a Google search, there's MANY other trivially easy ways to find it.

Re:The dude looks like a stereotypical redneck

[ihtoit]

uh, two words for ya: George Bush.

Need any more?

Re:Who cares? It's the state that time forgot.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wyoming is just one of those imaginary states like Idaho and East Prussia.

Google play

[OzPeter]

The best comment I saw on Ars, was that as a response to these AG tactics by the MPAA and RIAA, Google should remove all references to the MPAA and RIAA from its search results. There doesn't seem any reason that google *has* to index your site.

Re:You'd cheer were it Exxon instead of Google

[Dorianny]

Of course we would be cheering if they went after oil companies such as Exxon because their business is implicated not only in local environmental destruction but planetary scale pollution as well.

Isn't this how prosecution is supposed to work?

[BitterOak]

I'm not saying I agree that Google was breaking the law here, but in general, when a party feels they have been injured by another party acting unlawfully, isn't it standard practice for the injured party to work with prosecutors? Certainly victims of violent crime like rape, etc. will often meet with someone in the D.A.'s office to help prepare the case. This may have gone a bit further, with lobbyists and contributions, etc., but that's all part of politics. So I still don't really see how Google has a case here.

Re:Isn't this how prosecution is supposed to work?

[Johnny Loves Linux]

> isn't it standard practice for the injured party to work with prosecutors?
Yes, yes it is. What is **not** standard practice is for an "injured party" (is it clear that MPAA is an "injured party"?) to bribe prosecutors and write their legal briefs for them. Does that help to make it clear why this behavior is offensive to some, and probably illegal (hence the lawsuit by Google against the attorney general.)

Re:Isn't this how prosecution is supposed to work?

[Anonymous Coward]

First off: IANAL. Just skimmed the complaint (surprisingly light reading, actually).

Because Hood is going after them for stuff which is *clearly* protected by the CDA and DMCA (not to mention the first amendment and a lot of case law) and using a subpeona as punishment for Google refusing to cave to all his demands instead of as an information gathering tool (pages 9-14). The subpoena even "... makes crystal clear that it demands information about activities immunized by the CDA." (page 14), which is explicitly forbidden by the CDA (page 18). Google is even arguing that the *state* AG has no standing as a bunch of this stuff is the sole jurisdiction of the federal government (pages 30-32).

The title of the article is misleading—the core of the complaint has nothing to do with Hood conspiring with the MPAA, it's that he is on a vendetta and has no legal standing. The MPAA angle is really only mentioned in passing (e.g., in a footnote on page 13).

Again, IANAL, and obviously this document is pretty one-sided, but this really seems like a slam-dunk for Google. It's pretty clear that federal law immunizes them from the stuff Hood is complaining about, the subpoena is purely punishment for Google not doing more to censor their search results (in spite of the fact that they already do more than required to by law).

Re:Isn't this how prosecution is supposed to work?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, its not a waste of money. Every time I get your company indicted, regardless of merit, it hurts your brand, your business development opportunities, etc, etc. It's a standard smear campaign tactic and smear campaigns work. Regardless of the outcome of a meritless case.

They don't need to win, and they probably don't care if they do. They just need to interfere with Google's operations and cost them money to the point where they have increased leverage in any dealings with Google.

Really, its pretty standard scumbag tactics.

Re:Isn't this how prosecution is supposed to work?

[demonlapin]

The MPAA most likely doesn't care about winning - they just want to get the case to proceed to discovery. Hood doesn't care about winning, because he will claim that the tort case he should file is too complex for the small staff of the state AG's office to try. He will then put the case in the hands of a big-time plaintiff's attorney, who will probably be able to find something in all that discovered material to force a big payout. The settlement will be reached, and the AG will have gotten 20% in the hands of someone who will undoubtedly hire him on after he leaves office.

That is exactly what happened with the last guy in that office.

Re:The dude looks like a stereotypical redneck

[demonlapin]

The AG is a Democrat, and he is attempting to repeat the extraordinarily profitable strategy used by one of his predecessors to enrich friends and allies at the expense of a large business - in that case, the tobacco industry, here Google. He was funded by plaintiff's attorneys eager for a cut of a large settlement check, and elected by people who like to sue those with more money than themselves.

There are places in Mississippi that functioned as tort mills for a long time, although most of them are not populated with people who look like him.

Re:The dude looks like a stereotypical redneck

[demonlapin]

The AG is a Democrat.

Re:You'd cheer were it Exxon instead of Google

[Crashmarik]

What am I cheering for Exxon ?

If they were suing an Attorney general for being in the pocket of greenpeace sure I would cheer.

I'd also cheer if they were suing federal officials for promoting the insane gasahol program or cellolosic ethanol programs that have been nothing less than completely counterproductive.

I'd also cheer if they were suing over the sandbagging of the building of new refineries.

Re:Ahh, the lawyer, America's privledged class

[ISoldat53]

That's what privilege means, private law."

lol you Exxon haters

[camg188]

If you own any shares in a mutual fund you most likely an Exxon stockholder.