I’m sure you’ve heard of SOPA by now: It’s the supposed anti-piracy bill that’s so poorly worded and thought-out it may just destroy the internet as we know it. It was authored by Texas Congressman Lamar Smith, and well… It seems like Rep. Smith doesn’t like to play by his own rules.
Vice.com recently went over Smith’s website with a fine tooth comb to see if the toupee-clad opportunist really cared about copyright protection as much as he says he does, and guess what? They discovered that the background image on the Congressman’s site was in fact a copyrighted image, used without the permission of the original photographer, DJ Shulte.
Vice asked Shulte how he felt about the Congressman illegally using his copyrighted image, to much he replied: “I do not see anywhere on the screen capture that you have provided that the image was attributed to the source (me). So my conclusion would be that Lamar Smith’s organization did improperly use my image. So according to the SOPA bill, should it pass, maybe I could petition the court to take action against www.texansforlamarsmith.com.”
It’s always funny to see a politician get called out on their hypocrisy, especially when said politician has introduced a bill that could potentially stifle internet creativity and ruin the entire tech industry. With a gaffe like this, one has to wonder whether Rep. Smith even understands the bill he’s “authored” or whether he’s too busy counting the special-interest money he’s received from corporate lobbyists to even realize the damage he’s about to cause.
Source: Vice
Chris Hernandez
Either he changed his government site or I couldn’t find the one that violated the copyright, but either way SOPA does not affect him, as he doesn’t rely on advertising or third party payment methods, which is all SOPA really does shut down.