Tensions between Google and Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood exploded into public view this week, as Google filed court papers seeking to halt a broad subpoena Hood sent to the company.

The Hood subpoena, delivered in late October, didn't come out of nowhere. Hood's investigation got revved up after at least a year of intense lobbying by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). E-mails that hackers acquired from Sony Pictures executives and then dumped publicly now show the inner workings of how that lobbying advanced—and just how extensive it was. Attorneys at Sony were on a short list of top Hollywood lawyers frequently updated about the MPAA's "Attorney General Project," along with those at Disney, Warner Brothers, 21st Century Fox, NBC Universal, and Paramount.

The e-mails show a staggering level of access to, and influence over, elected officials. The MPAA's single-minded obsession: altering search results and other products (such as "autocompleted" search queries) from Google, a company the movie studios began referring to as "Goliath" in around February 2014. The studios' goal was to quickly get pirated content off the Web; unhappy about the state of Google's voluntary compliance with their demands and frustrated in their efforts at passing new federal law such as SOPA and PIPA, the MPAA has turned instead to state law enforcement.

The most controversial elements of SOPA/PIPA would have let content owners effectively shut down websites they said were infringing their copyrights or trademarks. This already happens—think of various peer-to-peer sites that no longer exist—but it usually involves drawn-out litigation. SOPA promised a faster-moving process that would have essentially made rights holders a website's judge, jury, and executioner.

To get the same results in a post-SOPA world, MPAA has hired some of the nation's most well-connected lawyers. The project is spearheaded by Thomas Perrelli, a Jenner & Block partner and former Obama Administration lawyer. Perrelli has given attorneys general (AGs) across the country their talking points, suggesting realistic "asks" prior to key meetings with Google. Frustrated with a lack of results, Perrelli and top MPAA lawyers then authorized an "expanded Goliath strategy" in which they would push the AGs to move beyond mere letter writing. Instead, they would seek full-bore investigations against Google.

If the AGs felt short on resources—well, Hollywood studios could help with that. Money from Sony and other Big Six studios was available to draft the actual subpoenas, to research legal theories to prosecute Google, to spread negative press about the search giant, and to reach out to other state AGs that might join with Hood.

This is how the project unfolded over the past year.

Late 2013: Ramping up

One chain of e-mails among the MPAA and studio lawyers bears the subject line "STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL PROJECT" and focuses on how Google could be pressured into altering its search results, demoting or removing so-called "rogue sites" that host high levels of copyrighted context.

Most notes on the project came from Vans Stevenson, the MPAA's VP of state legislative affairs; higher-level updates were written by MPAA general counsel Steven Fabrizio or took the form of memos written by Perrelli. Most information about the AG project was shared with a group of more than 30 lawyers, including several from the MPAA and RIAA, as well as each of the six big studios, but some were kept to just general counsels and their immediate confidantes.

"[Attorney] General Hood told me by e-mail today that his conversation 'with Google’s General Counsel did not go well,' and therefore he followed up with the letter that was sent yesterday," Vans Stevenson informed the group in November 2013. "Hood also said he was organizing a meeting during the NAAG [National Association of Attorneys General] meeting next week in New Orleans with his outside counsel Mike Moore, former MS Attorney General. Also attending that meeting will be MPAA/RIAA outside counsel Tom Perrelli and others, 'so we can discuss the next move,' Hood wrote.... I will keep you advised of further developments."

The e-mail includes a letter from Hood to Google general counsel Kent Walker. It was published earlier this week by The New York Times, which reported that most of the letter was actually written by Perrelli's law firm.

Several weeks later, a meeting took place between Google executives and Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen. The same morning the meeting took place, MPAA's Perrelli was informed about it by two attorneys at the AG's office, who offered to send Google's presentation to Perrelli. Jepsen reached out to the MPAA, seeking demands that he could press against Google. Perelli wrote:

I talked this morning with the CT AG’s office [names redacted] about their meeting with Google. They indicated that it was purely a listening meeting, where Google went through the “standard” presentation of all the things that it does to protect privacy and stop unlawful conduct. They are going to send me the presentation that Google did and asked that we come up and give them a “rebuttal” at some point in the next few weeks (likely the first half of February)... They told me that AG Jepsen is interested in this area and wants to see if there is something reasonable and practical that he can do to be helpful. They understand the concerns that we have and largely agree with them, but want to be cautious here (consistent with the temperament of their boss). He is not afraid to tangle with Google, as he has on antitrust, but his approach is to look for a small number of reasonable things to demand of them and then to press them hard on it. They asked that we not “shoot the moon” on our asks. I went through our issues and concerns and emphasized that the asks that we have are really things that Google has demonstrated it can do when it feels like it. I am going to send them the 4 white papers, per their request.

Perelli attached four Microsoft Word files to his update, entitled "Google can take action," "Google must change its behavior," "Google illegal conduct" and "CDA."

January 2014: Creating Google “asks”

On January 21, 2014, Google's Kent Walker met with 13 state attorneys general who wanted to know more about what Google could do to demote or delete pirated content from its search results. For the MPAA, it was a pivotal moment.

Before the meeting, Mississippi's Hood had already made clear he was going to push his counterparts in other states to take stronger action over movie piracy. He called Stevenson at the MPAA, asking for "fresh examples for his planned live 'search' demonstration of illegal site activity, including the availability of motion pictures only in theatrical release," according to an update Stevenson sent the group.

By the time the AGs meet with Google, they and their staffs had been heavily prepped by Perrelli. In the early morning of January 21, Perelli shared some of the impressions from those prep meetings:

1) The AGs are going to start the meeting by saying that they are frustrated that Google has not acted; they have had much better success engaging with Facebook and eBay, but feel Google is non-responsive. They want real change at Google that will stick – not just change that lasts for a short time after immense pressure is put on them. 2) The AGs are struggling with their asks. They understand that Google is likely to offer a few morsels, they know it won’t be sufficient, but they are unsure how to demand more. Some want to move to CIDs [civil investigative demands, like a subpoena], but I think the majority want to set a short date for some substantial change on a number of fronts (Search, YouTube, Autocomplete). I went over their likely asks again, but encouraged them not to commit to anything with Google in the meeting. 3) I walked away from these meetings thinking that we need to develop a different presentation for the AGs – how Google works. There was a real lack of understanding about Google, its services, its interactions with websites, etc. They don’t need more about the bad stuff you can get on the Internet; they need to understand better how Google makes money... 4) I spent more time with Hood after the meeting and, I hope, got him focused on the key issues and the asks. He really does care a great deal about piracy – and he doesn’t get sidetracked by some of the things that Microsoft prefers. He wants Google to delist pirate sites and he is going to ask them to do that tomorrow... 6) [Former Washington State AG] Rob McKenna was very helpful– and I talked to some of his clients at Microsoft and my take is that they are not particularly concerned about our advocacy on search. They see the bigger picture.

Later that day, Stevenson sent a report on the meeting. For more than two hours, led by Mississippi AG Hood, the AGs had confronted Google's Walker about the desired issue: "websites devoted to illegal IP activity." They challenged Walker to "delist and block those websites," wrote Stevenson. Google countered that it did not in fact know that every site on the MPAA hitist was in "devoted to illegal IP activity" but that it took action when this was clear. This did not go over well with either the MPAA, which continued to lobby the AGs to take action. As Stevenson put it after the meeting:

Our counsel Tom Perrelli and I spoke this evening. We will organize an outreach to all AGs and deputies that attended the meeting in person, as well as participated by phone, to get a more complete picture of the meeting and their feedback. Perrelli will also follow-up with AG Hood regarding the planned letter to Google and offer assistance.

It would take time, but this continued attention to Hood in particular did pay off.