New Court Evidence Reveals Hollywood’s Plan to Smear Google

Over the years, Google and Hollywood have fought bitterly over the Stop Online Piracy Act, an anti-piracy bill that would have granted the US government and private corporations extraordinary power to battle copyright infringement on the web. It failed to pass in 2012. But it lives on. The Motion Picture Association of America is still seeking to revive it, and with Google still very much opposed to the idea, the MPAA is apparently doing its best to make life difficult for the Internet giant.

Back in December, the search giant complained in a blog post of efforts by the MPAA to push an investigation of Google through the office of Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood. Now, in a new court filing, the company submitted additional evidence that appears to show just how deep the relationship between the attorney general and the Hollywood studios goes. An e-mail sent between AG Hood’s staffers and Brian Cohen, a director of external state government affairs for the MPAA, describes a coordinated plan to hurt Google, including a recommendation that “NewsCorp… 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”; the suggestion that NBC’s government relations department could help place an anti-Google segment on the today show; and that AG Hood’s office look into hiring a PR firm “to create an attack on Google (and other players who are resisting AG efforts to address online piracy).”