PIPA Problems

So a couple of weeks ago I wrote about Rep. Jason Chaffetz' tireless work at stopping SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act).  Well the Protect IP Act is the Senate version of the bill.  PIPA is sponsored but Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy but it also has Utah ties - our own senior Senator Orrin Hatch is a co-sponsor of the bill!   As I noted in my previous post, there are numerous groups out there opposing SOPA/PIPA because the bill was written so loosely and sloppily that it could do real and permanent damage to the internet as we know it today.  One site that has been a major driving force of opposition has been Reddit.  Reddit has multiple pages devoted to the fight against SOPA/PIPA including this page taking Senators to task for refusing to meet with their own constituents on the bill.  Included on that list of Senators that are refusing to meet with their constituents on the bill is also one of the co-sponsors....our own ORRIN HATCH.  Apparently our senior Senator does not want input from those of us he supposedly represents.  The why is really simple.....Senator Hatch has taken in a TON of money from pro-PIPA groups.

• • $489,907 from big media
  • $685,357 from pro-PIPA groups
  • $95,550 from anti-PIPA groups

The funny thing is, the chief author of SOPA, Rep. LaMar Smith (R-TX) is a violator of his own bill!

US Congressman and poor-toupee-color-chooser Lamar Smith is the guy who authored the Stop Online Piracy Act. SOPA, as I'm sure you know, is the shady bill that will introduce way harsher penalties for companies and individuals caught violating copyright laws online (including making the unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime which you could actually go to jail for). If the bill passes, it will destroy the internet and, ultimately, turn the world into Mad Max (for more info, go here).

I decided to check that everything on Lamar's official campaign website was copyright-cleared and on the level. Lamar is using several stock images on his site, two of which I tracked back to the same photographic agency. I contacted the agency to make sure he was paying to use them, but was told that it's very difficult for them to actually check to see if someone has permission to use their images. (Great news, copyright violators!) However, seeing as they're both from the same agency and are unwatermarked, it seems fairly likely that he is the only person on the entire internet who is actually paying to use a stock image (and he'd be an idiot not to).

So I took a look back at an archived, pre-SOPA version of his site.

And this is the background image Lamar was using. I managed to track that picture back to DJ Schulte, the photographer who took it.

And whaddya know? Looks like someone forgot to credit him.

I contacted DJ, to find out if Lamar had asked permission to use the image and he told me that he had no record of Lamar, or anyone from his organization, requesting permission to use it: "I switched my images from traditional copyright protection to be protected under the Creative Commons license a few years ago, which simply states that they can use my images as long as they attribute the image to me and do not use it for commercial purposes.

"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."

The ironic thing is I have no doubt that Lamar is alone here - THIS is why Rep. Chaffetz is right and Sen. Hatch is dead wrong on this bill.  THIS is why SOPA has to be stopped - and if Senator Hatch thinks that he knows more than the people who sent him to DC....the people he is supposed to be representing, well then maybe it is time for Senator Hatch to be retired.  If he can't be bothered to listen to us in DC, then we have no choice but to speak our minds at the ballot box and at convention.