On January 6th, the copyright-reform organization Public Knowledge sent out an e-mail to supporters urging them to take action to oppose the Protect IP Act.

"Find a town hall meeting by joining our Meetup Group," the email said. "Public Knowledge will use this resource to keep you informed about town hall updates. If you find out about a town hall that is not on our Meetup page, please write pk@publicknowledge.org."

Four days later, Creative America, a group founded by major Hollywood studios to lobby for the Protect IP Act, sent out an e-mail to its own supporters.

"Find a town hall meeting near you by joining our meet up group," the email said. "Creative America will use this as a way to keep you informed and up to date about town hall meetings in your area. If you find out about a town hall meeting that is not on our page, please contact us at info@creativeamerica.org and we'll update it."

Both e-mails continued with surprisingly similar language. Both urged recipients to "go to a town hall meeting held by your Senator" and "bring copies of our fact sheet." And both advised readers that if they are unable to attend a town hall meeting, or if their senator is not planning such a meeting, that they should go to their district office to voice their support.

Is it possible that both Public Knowledge and Creative America were using a template produced by a third party? Public Knowledge insists this isn't the case. The organization's Michael Weinberg told Ars that their e-mail was "comically overedited internally from scratch." Another PK staffer agrees that the e-mail was "100% original."

We reached out to Creative America on Twitter and by e-mail, but it hasn't responded.

Judging from its tweets, Public Knowledge seems more amused than outraged. But while the incident is funny, it raises a serious policy issue. The Protect IP Act would give the large companies that fund Creative America the power to impose harsh penalties on website owners accused of "content theft" with minimal due process. Given that this isn't the first time Hollywood has gotten its own content confused with content belonging to other people, we remain extremely skeptical that it's a good idea to give the industry sweeping powers over the content of others.