Don't Complain

vicemag:

The Author of SOPA Is a Copyright Violator

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.

Above is a screenshot of his site as it appeared on the 24th of July, 2011.

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.”

Oh dear. Luckily for DJ, there are people out there like Lamar making new laws to protect the little guy against online copyright theft. Keep fighting that good fight, Lamar!

We’ve contacted the office of Lamar Smith and are waiting on a response.

Follow Jamie on Twitter: @JLCT

My email to PC Richards.

I have been back and forth with them over a period of two months.  Finally started tweeting at them today, and that seems to have gotten their attention.  Incredible that I paid almost $200 for a service contract that has gotten me nowhere, but calling them out on twitter got an immediate response.

Apparently they’re going to deliver it today, but I’ve heard that literally TEN times already.

Merry whatever.

(click on hi-res in the bottom left hand corner to read the email)

Amazing cover.

newyorker:

In this week’s issue: Mattathias Schwartz on the origins of Occupy Wall Street; George Packer profiles Peter Thiel; Raffi Khatchadourian talks to JR, the French street artist; and more: http://nyr.kr/Ln2M

thedailywhat:

Rich Get Richer of the Day: According to a Roll Call analysis of Congress members’ financial disclosure forms, the collective net worth of American lawmakers jumped 25 percent to over $2 billion in just the last two years — with 50 of the richest Congressmen and women accounting for 90 percent of the increase.

In 2008, the minimum net worth of House Members was just over $1 billion. In 2010, it rose to $1.26 billion. Senators experienced a more modest increase during this same time period, going from $651 million in 2008 to $784 million last year.

Roll Call notes that the real net worth of individual members is likely higher, since their estimates do not take into account non-income-generating properties such as private homes. Also, members are only required to disclose the minimum value of their assets — meaning, the actual value “may be much higher.”

Among other interesting facts: Senate Democrats are significantly wealthier than their Republican counterparts, while the opposite holds true in the House. Additionally, 78 percent of Congress’s total net worth is concentrated among 50 of its richest Members.

Don’t weep for the less-fortunate Members just yet: At least 196 House and Senate members are millionaires.

Any way you slice it, the average Congress Member is a serious chunk of change richer than the average citizen of the country he or she was elected to run: Congress’s median net worth last year was $513,000, which the median net worth among American households was around $100,000 — a number which, according to the Federal Reserve Board, has dropped by $20,000 since 2008.

[rollcall / image: sirmitchell.]

Money in politics.