Attorney General Downplays Ties To MPAA... Just As NY Times Reveals MPAA Actually Wrote The Letter He Sent Google

from the corruption-in-practice dept

Last week, we wrote about how some of the leaked emails from the Sony hack revealed that the MPAA was funding and coordinating various Attorneys General attacks on Google, even over topics that have nothing to do with copyright infringement. In response, Mississippi AG Jim Hood told the Huffington Post that he barely knows anyone at the MPAA, and has no idea who their lawyers are -- and that the MPAA has "no major influence" on what he's working on:

Hood said the MPAA "has no major influence on my decision-making," although he noted that content creators occasionally provide reports and advice to him. "They're just reporting wrongdoing. There's nothing unusual about that," he said. Hood said he has never asked MPAA a legal question, isn't sure which lawyers they employ, and doesn't think he's ever met the organization's general counsel.

Okay. Now keep that above paragraph in mind as you read the latest report from the NY Times, in which reporters Nick Wingfield and Eric Lipton (who just a few months ago had written that big article on questionable lobbying of Attorneys General) dig deeper into the Sony emails concerning the MPAA and AGs Jim Hood and Jon Bruning from Nebraska. The Times also uses some public records requests to show that the infamous letter that Hood sent to Google was almost entirely written by the MPAA's lawyers. You can see the whole thing at the link, but this thumbnail shows a pretty long letter with the only parts actually written by Hood's office being the intro at the top in green and a few minor word choices. All the rest came from the MPAA's lawyers at Jenner and Block. So... Hood claims that he doesn't even know the MPAA's lawyers, that it has no influence on what he does and that the MPAA is "just reporting wrongdoing" -- but then he takes a ~4,000 word letter that those same MPAA lawyers (that he claims he doesn't know) wrote, tosses on an intro and a few minor grammatical corrections, and sends it to Google? The letter itself is a piece of pure propaganda as well, completely misrepresenting a few things, taking others out of context, and making some bizarre legal arguments. Hood, of course, is no stranger to controversy and claims of cronyism, but this is taking things to another level.

The NY Times further uncovers that the "go-between" for the MPAA and Hood is a lobbyist the MPAA hired to run an MPAA front group. That lobbyist? Hood's predecessor and close friend:

The movie industry, through a nonprofit group it funded called Digital Citizens Alliance, picked the perfect lobbyist to squeeze Mr. Hood: Mike Moore. Mr. Moore was Mr. Hood’s predecessor as Mississippi attorney general and helped start Mr. Hood’s political career. He remains a close friend of the attorney general and travels with him frequently; he has even played a role in helping Mr. Hood get elected as the president of the National Association of Attorneys General, emails obtained by The Times show.

That front group, the "Digital Citizens Alliance," is one we discussed earlier this year, when it released a report about "evil" cyberlockers based on a misreading of two debunked studies. Certain cyberlockers have demanded a retraction of the report because of its ridiculous and shoddy methodology. In other words, the Alliance is not exactly the most trustworthy of operations -- and it's hired Jim Hood's best buddy and political mentor. But Hood wants us to believe that this group has no influence on him?

Even other Attorneys General find the situation questionable:

Peggy Lautenschlager, who served as attorney general in Wisconsin, said that the role that the movie industry had played in pushing Mr. Hood, through Mr. Moore and others, was inappropriate. “A private interest is influencing some attorneys general’s offices,” she said.

Meanwhile, others are trying to understand why Jim Hood is so close with the MPAA at all, since Mississippi doesn't even have much of a connection to the film business:

That makes his behavior all the more unusual since Mississippi has almost no economic interest in the movie industry. Indeed, the state lacks a major film school, doesn’t house production for a single scripted TV show, and has served as the main shooting location for only 5 widely released movies over the past decade. The MPAA itself says that the state has a total of 242 film-and-television-production related jobs; one of the smallest per-capita totals in the nation. All-in-all Mississippi has more people who make their living arranging flowers (460, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ databases) than in film and TV production. Maybe Jim Hood really likes hanging out with movie moguls?

Hood's stated reasoning makes even less sense:

"Google's not a government, they may think they are, but they don't owe anyone a First Amendment right," Hood told The Huffington Post. "If you're an illegal site, you ought to clean up your act, instead of Google making money off it."

[....]

Hood recalled a meeting in Boston, where a high school girl demonstrated to attorneys general how easy it was for her to find a violent version of "Django Unchained" on the Internet. "Some of the AGs were amazed at that real-time example of what Google is assisting," Hood said.

Hood has "tried to get Google to delist several sites," relating to pharmaceuticals. He said he views movies and music piracy as "insignificant" to state prosecutors, compared with more serious types of crime. But Hood said he would support a nonprofit organization coming up with a list of piracy sites that Google would remove from search results. He argued that current copyright law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, isn't adequate, because a website can get millions of takedown notices, but still do business as usual.

It appears Hood is quite confused about, well, nearly everything. No, Google doesn't "owe anyone" a First Amendment right, but the government does. And here it appears that Hood -- a government representative -- is flat out supporting a censorship list of websites that must be blocked. Furthermore, he doesn't seem to understand the difference between a search engine and actually hosting or uploading infringing content. He also doesn't seem to recognize the history of blacklists and the fact that they always over-censor. Nor does he seem to understand how Google functions. All of these things would be rather easy to find out -- but just as easy to ignore if the MPAA is the one giving you all your talking points and legal documents.

Meanwhile, the original letters revealed that the MPAA was looking for other Attorneys General it could convince to get in on the game, and the NY Times notes that a clear target is Nebraska's Jon Bruning:

The movie association and its member companies, the messages show, have assigned a team of lawyers to prepare draft subpoenas and legal briefs for the attorneys general. And the groups have delivered campaign contributions — with several movie studios sending checks — to Jon Bruning, the Republican attorney general of Nebraska, who was helping push their cause, and who made an unsuccessful bid for governor this year.

Meanwhile, the reaction to all of this has been fascinating. I've seen multiple lawyers connected to Hollywood have kneejerk reactions that paying for an investigation, coordinating all of the efforts including writing up the letters and subpoenas, is just normal, everyday "aggressive competition." Yet, these are the same people who go out there and claim that you sharing a copy of a movie you liked with someone else is morally bankrupt and evil. Some people, it seems, have a different moral compass. Frankly, private companies financing government investigations of other private companies seems a hell of a lot more morally questionable than someone sharing a copy of a film they like.

Filed Under: attorneys general, copyright, corruption, jim hood, jon bruning, lobbying, mississippi, nebraska
Companies: google, mpaa

Nebraska Attorney General Sued For Trying To Stop Patent Troll

from the patent-trolls-getting-aggressive dept

Earlier this year, we noted that Vermont had declared war on patent trolls, arguing that patent trolling violated state consumer protection laws (and then passing a further law against patent trolling). More recently, the state of Minnesota made it clear that patent trolls aren't welcome there either. Nebraska's Attorney General Jon Bruning has tried a similar strategy, sending a cease-and-desist to at least one patent troll for violating state consumer protection laws and speaking out against patent trolls.

Activision TV (who appears to be unrelated to video gaming company Activision), using patents like US Patent 7,369,058 and US Patent 8,330,613 relating to digital displays, has been demanding license fees from a variety of companies. Bruning stepped in to let Activision and its lawyers know that they needed to cease and desist and were potentially violating Nebraska law, by using "false, misleading or deceptive statements" in seeking licensing fees. The letter also notes that this may be a form of "baseless harassment" and that the demands for licensing letters "serve to advance no valid legal purpose."

In response, it appears Activision has decided to get even more aggressive. As reader Nate sent in, Activision turned around and sued Bruning and some of his colleagues, arguing that he unfairly referred to them as a "patent troll" without doing a thorough investigation first. The filing, embedded below, is quite long, but goes on and on and on (and on and on -- making you wonder if Activision's lawyers get paid per word) about how unfair it is to be labeled a patent troll. It also argues that Bruning is attempting to stifle their First Amendment rights (along with their Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights as well). Apparently they believe that shaking a company down for "licensing" fees is protected speech.

Reading the lawsuit and comparing it to the letter that Bruning sent, it appears like a massive overreach by Activision -- and while I have my issues with how states' attorneys general will often act, this actually appears to be a legitimate case of trying to stop the aggressive use of questionable patents to demand money from lots of different companies.

Filed Under: jon bruning, nebraska, patent trolls
Companies: activision tv

Clueless State AGs Attack Google Over YouTube Videos Instead Of Pursuing The Criminals Who Made Them

from the seriously,-guys? dept

We've been writing a fair bit lately on the incredible anti-innovation, anti-free speech views of various states' attorneys general, who seem to be doing anything they can to get themselves shoved into the headlines by making completely bogus threats against internet companies for things their users do. The latest takes this level of pure cluelessness to new heights. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt win our award for "extremely clueless politicians of the week" for their latest misguided, mis-targeted, harmful and backwards attack on YouTube and Google. Basically because some people somewhere have used YouTube to post videos and these AGs think this will get them into the headlines, they're blaming Google.

After viewing a series of videos promoting dangerous activities such as the sale of illegal drugs, fraudulent passports and sex trafficking on YouTube, Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt asked YouTube's parent company, Google, to provide more information on how much the company has profited from videos.

Right. I'm wondering when Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt are going to demand that Ford explain why bank robbers use their cars as escape vehicles, or when Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt are going to demand that AT&T explain why extortionists have used their phone services.

Let's go through this nonsense step by step, because it's really beyond the pale. First off, it takes a special kind of cluelessness for two attorneys general, who are supposed to help their states enforce the law, to be shown videos that disclose crimes being committed and rather than go after those committing the crimes, instead decide to blame the tool that revealed the crimes to them. This is beyond blaming the messenger. This is blaming the manufacturer of a video camera because it was used to tape a crime which the AGs failed to stop. It's beyond a head in the sand approach. It's putting your head in the sand and then blaming the sky for shining light on your ass.

Second, there's an important bit of federal law called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides pretty clear safe harbors for service providers such that that they are not liable for actions committed by their users. In other words, there's no legal issue here for the AGs to grandstand about, even as they're hoping to get a personal exception to Section 230 that just applies to state AGs. Threatening companies over things for which they are not legally liable is extreme bullying by politicians who have way too much power.

Third, if the videos themselves are illegal, then there is a clear process by which those who found the videos can seek to get them taken off the site. If the videos are not illegal, as seems likely to be the case, then they're protected by the First Amendment, and these attacks from government officials seeking to stifle free speech really seem to raise serious questions about the competence of these Attorneys General to enforce the law in their own states, when they appear to be somewhat unfamiliar with both Constitutional basics and the federal laws that bind them.

Fourth, as it stands more than 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. If there's some magic way that these politicians think that each and every one of those videos can be pre-vetted to make sure nothing that they don't like gets uploaded, they don't understand basic math. The alternative, of course, is not to have the ability to have any user-generated content exist online at all. In other words, the "solution" is to kill what makes the internet and things like YouTube useful. Way to go, Jon Bruning and Scott Pruitt. I'm sure your constituents will be thrilled to know that your big accomplishment was to make sure that you killed YouTube and all of their ability to make and share their own content.

In other words, this is an extremely misguided move by two state politicians who are making themselves look incredibly foolish, because someone spread some moral panic FUD about "drugs and sex on YouTube!" And who's responsible for that? Ah, yes, an astroturfing group out of Washington, DC designed to create moral panics around Google:

Digital Citizens Alliance Executive Director Tom Galvin, who presented a detailed report to the National Association of Attorneys General on YouTube last month, made the following remarks after the letter was released:

"Google has allowed thousands of videos to exist on YouTube that offer drugs, prostitution, forged passports, counterfeits and content theft. Worse, they have profited from them by running ads in conjunction with these videos. Hopefully, the attorneys general will be able to get answers others have failed to get. Namely why such an important, otherwise great company is putting profit over the safety of Internet users. When Google finally takes steps to ensure these dangerous videos are gone for good from YouTube, the Internet will be a safer place."

Okay, well, here's the obvious response: Digital Citizens Alliance Executive Director Tom Galvin has allowed bogus, censorious, anti-innovation screeds to be sent by states' attorneys general. Worse, they have promoted this FUD-filled exercise with PR spam blasts to reporters trying to generate bogus faux-moral panics to promote their own anti-innovation agenda. Hopefully, the public and reporters will be able to get answers that others have failed to get. Namely, why such an obvious bullshit astroturfing group is putting anti-innovation, anti-free speech policies into the mouths of states attorneys general, and doing so in a manner that only leads to it being more difficult for law enforcement to track down actual criminals. When the Digital Citizens Alliance finally takes steps to ensure that it stops these bogus moral panics in targeting third parties and driving the actual crimes further underground, the internet will be a safer place.

As you can see from the full letter that these guys sent, they're demanding answers to various questions, almost all of which appear to be based on flat-out ignorance of both how the technology of offering a platform for user-generated content works, as well as the automatic nature of internet advertising. Attacking a company by showing your own ignorance of the very basic technology, enjoyed by millions of people, doesn't seem like a particularly wise strategic political move by these attorneys general.

Filed Under: first amendment, free speech, jon bruning, scott pruitt, secondary liability, section 230, tom galvin, youtube
Companies: digital citizens alliance, google, youtube