The Stop Online Piracy Act was the MPAA’s declaration of war against the Internet. After SOPA’s ignominious defeat in 2012, the whole concept of site blocking as a means of fighting content piracy appeared to be dead. But in fact, emails between the MPAA and the studios leaked in the Sony hack reveal that the MPAA never gave up on the idea; it was only regrouping and reevaluating its tactics.

The first part of the MPAA’s new strategy was to mire Google in public criticism and state investigations. Industry lawyers viewed the search giant’s public advocacy against SOPA as a major obstacle to site blocking. If Google could be neutralized and site blocking re-litigated in a less public way, the MPAA would have a better shot of prevailing.

The organization began to criticize Google for its supposed role in content piracy, on the dubious grounds that a great many pirates might search for terms like [carly rae jepsen call me maybe mp3] or [game of thrones download], both real examples of search queries from Google’s 2014 anti-piracy report (and dwarfed by searches for [carly rae jepsen call me maybe] and [game of thrones], by the way). Google actually changed its search algorithm to demote sites for which they received a large number of valid DMCA notices. This move did not appease the MPAA and now appears to have been a mistake.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood. Rogelio V. Solis/AP

The MPAA lobbied state attorneys general to investigate the company for this and other manufactured offenses. In October, Mississippi AG Jim Hood complied, issuing a 79-page subpoena demanding information on Google’s role in online sales of illegal drugs, pornography, and other materials. Due to revelations in the Sony emails that the MPAA funded some of this activity, Google is now suing Hood in federal court for being improperly influenced by the organization.

A second prong in the MPAA’s strategy is to use the International Trade Commission to effect site blocking on the Internet. The ITC is empowered to prevent the importation of counterfeit or infringing articles into the United States. Under an April ruling, this can include digital goods that were created in violation of US patents.

In an August memo, lawyers working for the MPAA mapped out a strategy to extend this ruling to the international transmission of pirated content over the Internet. If they succeed, the ITC would be able to issue orders barring the “importation” of certain sites on the Internet — a site-blocking blacklist. In effect, the ITC would be implementing the most objectionable part of SOPA without even a Congressional vote.

It’s unlikely that Congress intended to vest the ITC with authority over all international telecommunications data transmissions. Consequently, we can all hope that the courts will do the sensible thing and limit the Commission’s power.

But the more striking point is what this strategy reveals about the MPAA: the organization still deeply believes in site blocking as more or less the solution to online piracy. It continues to position itself as an enemy of the open Internet.