Mississippi Attorney General Dares Reporters To Find Any Evidence Of Hollywood Funding... So We Did

from the oops dept

The saga of Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and his cozy ties to Hollywood continue to come out. He's been claiming that, sure, he met with Hollywood's top lawyer, Tom Perrelli, had him prep Hood for a meeting with Google, and even took a ~4,000 word angry letter that Perrelli wrote for him, signed it as his own and sent it to Google -- but he did all that without knowing that Perrelli worked for Hollywood's top lobbying arm, the MPAA. Uh huh.

And then in a press conference, he insisted that he was doing this out of his own interest in protecting the children -- but also admitted that his office didn't have any intellectual property experts and didn't have a million dollars to do an investigation (approximately the amount the MPAA's leaked emails show them discussing to fund this investigation) and that he needed to rely on such help from "victims" to make his case. It's fairly rare, though, that "victims" of a crime run the actual law enforcement investigation and fund it as well.

Still, in that last post, we also mentioned how Hood implied that anyone suggesting he was "paid off" might be defaming him, and apparently also stated that he wasn't getting any money from Hollywood, encouraging reporters to "check records."

Hood: Not getting any money from Hollywood as far as he knows. Encouraged us to check records.

— Therese Apel (@TRex21) December 18, 2014

Okay then. Let's... check the records. Here, for example, is the MPAA's Political Action Committee apparently giving $2,500 to an operation called "The Friends of Jim Hood." And, you can also look at the public record of who donated to his campaign, which pretty clearly shows donations to his campaign from NBC Universal and 20th Century Fox. Oh, and for good measure, the RIAA as well: And then there are some that are not as direct, but are at least noteworthy. First up, we've got the "Mike Moore Law Firm." Now, this might not be that surprising. Moore is a long time friend of Hood and preceded him as Attorney General. Moore apparently helped Hood get into politics and the two are regularly seen together. So it's no surprise that Moore would donate to his campaign. But it's at least noteworthy because the NY Times revealed that a Hollywood front group, the Digital Consumer's Alliance, which is funded by the movie studios, hired Moore as a lobbyist. So, at the very least, this may count partially as money from Hollywood: There were a few other interesting ones, but the other one I'll point to is from the Patrick Lynch Group. It's a "government affairs" operation focused on lobbying state attorneys general. But if you look at its page listing out when it's "in the news," a large number of them involve stories attacking Google. Here's an op-ed written by Patrick Lynch a few years ago attacking Google, which notes that he represents "FairSearch.org," which is a somewhat infamous Microsoft front group that has been behind a variety of attacks on Google throughout the years. So it may not be "Hollywood" money directly, but it's a top lobbyist for an effort to attack Google. None of that, of course, means that Hood is, in any way, beholden to this kind of money. This is just the nature of politics. But Hood was the one who directly dared reporters to check the record and said he hadn't received money from such sources. That's wrong. He did. The least he can do is admit it.

Filed Under: campaign contributions, funding, jim hood, mike moore, patrick lynch, tom perrelli
Companies: 20th century fox, comcast, fox, google, mpaa, nbc universal, riaa

More Evidence Revealed Of Hollywood's Chummy Relationship With State Attorney General... Even As He Plays Dumb

from the sometimes-it's-not-that-hard-to-play dept

The saga of the MPAA and it's uncomfortably close relationship with Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, continues to unfold. If you don't recall, the Sony Hack revealed that the MPAA had such a close relationship with Hood that it was allotting between $585k and $1.175 million to fund Hood's (misguided and based on faulty premises) investigation into Google, even promising $100k in media support. Hood responded by first denying any serious relationship with the MPAA, only to have it come out that not only had the letter that Hood had sent to Google demanding answers been almost entirely written by the MPAA's lawyer (gotta clear the metadata, guys), but that the MPAA had hired Hood's close friend, political mentor, and predecessor in office Mike Moore to push its agenda to Hood via the Hollywood front group "Digital Citizens Alliance."

Hood, apparently, is not backing down -- though his claims are looking increasingly ridiculous. The Huffington Post discovered that not only had the MPAA's Tom Perrelli written the initial letter, but also that Perrelli prepped Hood for his meeting with Google, telling him what to say to Google. Not only that, but Hood directly called the MPAA, asking for help in going after Google. And, yet, Hood still wants to claim there's nothing there, insisting that he had no idea who Perrelli even worked for.

Really.

First, the damning evidence:

Emails obtained by The Huffington Post show that in January, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood (D), president of the National Association of Attorneys General, called a lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Hood was looking for evidence of Google search results leading people to websites with pirated content -- evidence that he hoped to have on hand for an upcoming meeting with the search giant. Besides speaking with the lobbyist, Hood also worked with an outside counsel for the MPAA, a lawyer named Tom Perrelli, who prepped him and other state AGs on what to say during their meeting with Google.

Then the hard-to-believe denial:

Hood said he wan't aware that he was consulting with a lawyer who works with the MPAA on intellectual property issues. He added that he wouldn't find that problematic, if that was indeed the case.

Hood told The Huffington Post that Perrelli has offered to assist his office in its efforts to get search engines to "detect and delist" websites with illegal content and products. He said he did not know that Perrelli is a partner at Jenner & Block, a law firm retained by the MPAA.

"I could not tell you which law firm he works for now," Hood said, adding that he is "not aware" of the relationship between Jenner & Block and the MPAA.

So, Jim Hood would have you believe that he has no idea that Tom Perrelli works for Jenner & Block, or that he's outside counsel for the MPAA, and he expects people to just believe that?

Oh, and some more evidence that Hood absolutely knew he was working with the MPAA and reached out to them for "help":

According to other leaked documents, on January 16 of this year, Vans Stevenson, senior vice president for state government affairs at the MPAA, sent an email titled "STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL PROJECT: Update on AG Denver Meeting With Google Executives" to representatives from the Recording Industry Association of America and others. The email listed 14 AGs and deputy or assistant AGs who were scheduled to attend that meeting.

In that email, Stevenson wrote: "General Hood called me last night and asked that we provide fresh examples for his planned live 'search' demonstration of illegal site activity, including the availability of motion pictures only in theatrical release, which we are working on with our outside counsel Tom Perrelli’s team."

Note, that earlier this week, Hood had clearly said that he "has never asked MPAA a legal question." Okay, so he insists he's never asked the MPAA a legal question, but called up its government affairs guy and spent hours with the MPAA's top lawyer. And people are expected to believe this?

Watch the spin:

Hood, who told HuffPost he had received assistance from the MPAA but never asked the group any legal questions, noted that Stevenson "is not an attorney, so I would not have sought legal advice from him." He added, "As I said several times, we frequently ask the companies who report intellectual property theft to assist our office in identifying counterfeit items and evidence of how their property is being stolen."

So he called the MPAA "for assistance." Yet, that's not actually what the leaked MPAA emails reveal. Instead, it shows that he called them asking for "search examples" for his staged outrage party directed at Google.

Google has finally spoken out about this and, not surprisingly, the company is not amused, pointing out that this seems like a really nasty way for the MPAA to revive SOPA via Jim Hood. Further, it calls into question the thinking behind the MPAA's campaign:

While we of course have serious legal concerns about all of this, one disappointing part of this story is what this all means for the MPAA itself, an organization founded in part “to promote and defend the First Amendment and artists' right to free expression.” Why, then, is it trying to secretly censor the Internet?

As we noted last time, Hood has a bit of a reputation down in Mississippi for questionable activities, so we can just throw this on the pile. The WSJ once called him a "so-called Attorney General" after a federal judge called Hood out as "so-called law enforcement" for "colluding with [a] trial kingpin to evade a court order." Furthermore, Judge William Acker called out Hood for being "a co-conspirator... and an aider and abetter" You can read all the sketchy details about it here.

Perhaps it's true that Jim Hood meets with high powered lawyers when he doesn't know who they work for. Perhaps it's true that -- without knowing who's paying their bills -- he takes documents from them and sends them off with almost no changes to companies demanding "answers." But if his excuse is, honestly, that he cares so little about the details that he's willing to be a patsy for big corporate lawyers without even knowing who he's now really working for that doesn't make him look good. The choice here seems to be either that Hood is lying about being deeply connected to the MPAA, and the MPAA is practically running his investigation (including the funding and writing the threat letters and subpoenas) or that Hood is so clueless that he doesn't bother finding out who high powered lawyers are working for before accepting their 4,000 word threat letters, signing his name to them and shipping them off.

I'm not sure which scenario makes him look worse.

Filed Under: attorney general, jim hood, mississippi, sony hack, tom perrelli, vans stevenson
Companies: jenner & block, mpaa

RIAA's Favorite Lawyer Tells Senate Committee He Hopes DOJ Can Focus More On IP

from the here-it-comes dept

We've been talking about how the various favorite lawyers of the big content lobbying organizations all seem to be ending up in the Justice Department. Some have pointed out that these lawyers will most likely be focused on other DOJ business, since IP issues aren't a major issue within Justice. They also point out that folks in the Justice Department have very little impact on policy. That may be true... but at the hearings to confirm Tom Perrelli as associate attorney general, he did talk quite a bit about IP issues, saying that he hopes the Justice Department will bring renewed focus on the issue, while noting that existing US intellectual property laws "don't seem to be addressing the problem." As a starting point, that's not a great sign, especially since he focuses on the supposed "problem" when it's not even clear that there is a problem. He claims it's "counterfeiting" and "piracy" but we've already seen that piracy isn't a problem -- smart business models address that. And, as for counterfeiting, both the OECD and the GAO have made it clear that any "problem" has been massively exaggerated by industry lobbyists -- such as those Perrelli used to work for.

Filed Under: associate attorney general, obama, tom perrelli

Obama Appoints Former RIAA Lawyer To Associate Attorney General

from the good-lawyer,-bad-client dept

Amidst a number of high profile appointments today was the position of associate attorney general. The high-ranking position has been awarded to Tom Perrelli of the prominent law firm Jenner & Block. By all accounts, Perrelli has led an impressive legal career spanning public service and private practice. However, his most recent tenure in private practice has had him representing the recording industry. Although specifics are hard to come by, according to his official biography, "Mr. Perrelli regularly represents the recording industry in cutting-edge intellectual property, technology, and anti-piracy litigation. He has represented the recording industry in a host of cases arising under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), as well as in copyright infringement and digital piracy litigation. He has also represented the record industry and recording artists in a series of copyright royalty proceedings before the Copyright Royalty Board."

Of course, Mr. Perrelli's job was to represent the interest of his clients, but given the questionable legal tactics the RIAA has pursued in its litigation and the problems with the Copyright Royalty Board, there is reason to pause regarding his appointment. But, as Matt Yglesias writes, since the RIAA has relied so heavily on litigation, it's probably a good bet that they chose the best lawyers they could.

Filed Under: associate attorney general, obama, tom perrelli
Companies: jenner & block, riaa