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Plan To Run Anti-Google Smear Campaign Revealed In MPAA Emails
vivaoporto writes: Techdirt reports on a plan to run an anti-Google smear campaign via the Today Show and the WSJ discovered in MPAA emails. Despite the resistance of the Hollywood studios to comply with the subpoenas obtained by Google concerning their relationship with Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood (whose investigation of the company appeared to actually be run by the MPAA and the studios themselves) one of the few emails that Google have been able to get access to so far was revealed this Thursday in a filling. It's an email between the MPAA and two of Jim Hood's top lawyers in the Mississippi AG's office, discussing the big plan to "hurt" Google.
The lawyers from Hood's office flat out admit that they're expecting the MPAA and the major studios to have its media arms run a coordinated propaganda campaign of bogus anti-Google stories. One email reads: "Media: We want to make sure that the media is at the NAAG meeting. We propose working with MPAA (Vans), Comcast, and NewsCorp (Bill Guidera) to see about working with a PR firm to create an attack on Google (and others who are resisting AG efforts to address online piracy). This PR firm can be funded through a nonprofit dedicated to IP issues. The "live buys" should be available for the media to see, followed by a segment the next day on the Today Show (David green can help with this). After the Today Show segment, you want to have a large investor of Google (George can help us determine that) come forward and say that Google needs to change its behavior/demand reform. Next, you want NewsCorp to develop and place an editorial in the WSJ emphasizing that Google's stock will lose value in the face of a sustained attack by AGs and noting some of the possible causes of action we have developed."
As Google notes in its legal filing about this email, the "plan" states that if this effort fails, then the next step will be to file the subpoena (technically a CID or "civil investigatory demand") on Google, written by the MPAA but signed by Hood. This makes it pretty clear that the MPAA, studios and Hood were working hand in hand in all of this and that the subpoena had no legitimate purpose behind it, but rather was the final step in a coordinated media campaign to pressure Google to change the way its search engine works.
The lawyers from Hood's office flat out admit that they're expecting the MPAA and the major studios to have its media arms run a coordinated propaganda campaign of bogus anti-Google stories. One email reads: "Media: We want to make sure that the media is at the NAAG meeting. We propose working with MPAA (Vans), Comcast, and NewsCorp (Bill Guidera) to see about working with a PR firm to create an attack on Google (and others who are resisting AG efforts to address online piracy). This PR firm can be funded through a nonprofit dedicated to IP issues. The "live buys" should be available for the media to see, followed by a segment the next day on the Today Show (David green can help with this). After the Today Show segment, you want to have a large investor of Google (George can help us determine that) come forward and say that Google needs to change its behavior/demand reform. Next, you want NewsCorp to develop and place an editorial in the WSJ emphasizing that Google's stock will lose value in the face of a sustained attack by AGs and noting some of the possible causes of action we have developed."
As Google notes in its legal filing about this email, the "plan" states that if this effort fails, then the next step will be to file the subpoena (technically a CID or "civil investigatory demand") on Google, written by the MPAA but signed by Hood. This makes it pretty clear that the MPAA, studios and Hood were working hand in hand in all of this and that the subpoena had no legitimate purpose behind it, but rather was the final step in a coordinated media campaign to pressure Google to change the way its search engine works.
No matter how outdated you are, you have to protect the family business. These big content distribution moguls are all up in arms about the fact that content distribution is trivially easy now. What would you do if you had a multi-billion dollar business built around doing something that became trivially easy to do? Start breaking some knee caps of course!
They've been operating in the grey area of the law for half a century. It's only a matter of time until MPAA/RIAA and their constituents get tried under RICO statutes.
You already pay the AG's salary as well as his business expenses and his medical/dental/vision through your taxes. You shouldn't have to illegally bribe him extra to have him do what's best for the general public that he's being legally paid to serve.
Serving someone other than the people who elect you and pay your salary needs to be tried as treason or at least heavily stigmatized. Unfortunately, it's not even frowned upon lately.
but what are we going to do about it? We're too diverse and too different. Nothing in the pot actually melts. There are also way too many single issue voters. The Gun Lobby, Gay Rights, Abortion, Cuba (it screws with our presidential election). These things bring folks to the polls to vote and they don't care about economic issues economic issues (which at it's heart this MPAA flap really is).
The reason Germany & the Icelandic countries are doing so well is they're united. Their working class has solidarity. Things are looking up a little. Gay Rights is more or less done. The Left is dropping gun control and Obama opened up Cuba. But looking at crap like this shows me they're just as good at dividing and manipulating us as every...
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Yes, but we ain't living in a perfect world and politicians as well as officials who should work for taxes deliberately choose to be whores and sell themselves to the highest bidder. So ok, I can't change the game so I want in. How much? How much is the whore? How much for a law? How much to actually get it executed? How much to get a law bent and turned inside out to use it against its intent?
Apparently these hoes are for sale, so what's left to be determined is the price.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Lobbying isn't evil in itself. I've worked as a lobbyist. Politicians aren't experts in every domain, so a domain expert explaining the issue can be very useful.
George Lakoff explained it very well in a video that I can't find now. He said "lobby reform" is wrongly framing the debate. Groups should be allowed to say what they want politicians to do, but it's the politicians who must take this info and then do what the public wants. "Congressional integrity" is the term I think he said we should use for this debate. If our political representatives had more integrity, then lobbyists wouldn't be such a problem.
If there's a problem that politicians are taking bribes (be it campaign contributions or the promise of a well-paid job later), the party with the most guilt is the politician. We shouldn't let them off the hook by saying "It's the lobbyist's fault for offering the bribe!"
In the video I saw, he didn't go into how to reform "congressional integrity" but off the top of my head maybe he'd suggest politicians be subject to greater financial transparency, and maybe be banned for a certain time from taking jobs in certain industries whose legislation they worked on as a politician.
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How about an Attorney General knowingly siding with illicit corporate interests?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
How is this 1) legal, 2) accepted? Doesn't this directly fall under false advertising?
Here in Denmark, smear campaigns generally don't happen. You do not talk bad about other people or products - you instead talk about what you're doing better. And if you do smear competitors, you will lose face in the public eye.
It seems that in the US, that's entirely opposite. So bizarre.
There is collusion between the Mississippi AG and the MPAA. They are trying to interfere with Google's business. Google is involved in interstate commerce (duh). So there's a RICO case right there.
Anybody can initiate a RICO prosecution. The DOJ can always join the case if it wants to. Or not. In this situation there is a lot of disincentive for the DOJ to join: a large number of DOJ attorneys are planning on going to work for entities like the MPAA (lobbyists) and the recording/film industries when finish their relatively low paying stints with the government. Having the DOJ go after their future employers does not fit in with their personal plans.
Still, it would be highly amusing to watch Google go after the MPAA for conspiracy. That would make headlines outside of Slashdot. Ultimately I doubt it will happen. Even though they are more then willing to fight dirty, there is a higher level pact between big companies: don't do things that will reveal to the general population just how corrupt the system is. If people ever realize just how badly they are routinely screwed by the government/business complex, they might stop being sheep and start paying attention. That could be a disaster for big business. So it is really not likely to happen.
Why is Snark Required?
Given that their goal right now is obviously to harm they way we look for information, is there any other system they propose in place of the current one?
Yes. Tom Brokaw earnestly looking out of the picture tube into your eyes, every single day at 6:00PM and 11:00PM, telling you how the world is, and you accepting it unquestioningly. The way it was for 50 years.
I don't think people understand just how much raw power television had over the Boomers. It was absolutely all-encompassing. It could and did literally dictate how the nation thought. What was said on the nightly news was what was Truth the next day. If you dissented at all you were counter-culture hippy scum who didn't deserve to live. And everybody knew this, because TV said so.
The Internet dismantled their hegemony, and they want it back.
They correctly identify Google as the reason why the Internet is as effective as it is, instead of being the moral equivalent of a bunch of underground newspapers with strictly local circulation and zero credibility. Google made it possible to find anything you were looking for, directly, without waiting for the organic growth of HTML links to piece it together, and effectively without a gatekeeper, since Google for their first decade of operation didn't have the time or the personnel to care what you were doing. The MPAA and their decades-long political allies want Google ended, because the Internet has made it very much harder to manufacture consent, and they believe that without Google the Internet will dissolve into isolated, bickering splinters that would be easy to once again marginalize from their bully pulpit that is television.
Corporations were not considered in the original list of entities that would need to be included in the checks-and-balances equation. Back in the Founders day, there was the East India Tea Company, but still governments were unquestioningly the shot callers. So, there was an effort to place checks and balances within government.
Today, businesses have grown large enough to co-opt government. And they definitely influence society.
Eisenhower warned of the Military-Industrial complex in his famous speech: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Today, the financial sector dwarfs defense in its lobbying efforts. Technology is also another gigantic sector with a growing influence.
So - Business must now be included in the check and balance equation of governing. Unfortunately, virtually no one willingly gives up power.