POLITICAL LEDGER

Report: MPAA used Mississippi AG Hood in fight with Google

The Clarion-Ledger
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood reportedly was used by MPAA to go after Google.

The leaked e-mails in the Sony hacking scandal revealed that Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood was used by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in that organization's fight against Google and copyright infringement.

According to reports from multiple news sites, the MPAA devised a plan to work with state attorneys general to revive efforts for anti-piracy legislation (such as SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act). Google and other tech companies fought against SOPA, which failed in Congress in 2012.

Hood, president of the National Association of Attorneys General, told The Huffington Post that he supports SOPA principles and wants to hold Google accountable for hosting content that prosecutors consider illegal, prioritizing busting counterfeit drugs over piracy. He said his views haven't been influenced by the movie industry.

"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."

The Verge has reported that the MPAA and the major Hollywood studios directly funded various state Attorneys General, including Hood, in their efforts to attack and shame Google.

The Verge story also reported that the MPAA and six studios — Universal, Sony, Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros., and Disney — jointly began a new campaign against piracy on the web back in January.