[Updated 1-16-12: Both photographers mentioned below have confirmed they did not give Congressman Smith permission to use their work (see comments). In a not-coincidental move, Smith’s website has been updated to remove the offending content.]

In The Author of SOPA is a Copyright Violator Jamie Taete accuses congressman Lavar Smith of violating the very law he’s pushing through congress. Taete points to an old version of Smith’s site with a background photo used w/out the photographer’s permission. Since the photo in question is no longer on the site one might be tempted to think the congressman saw the error of his ways. But a quick survey of Smith’s current site shows a montage of images in the banner below, which I’ve highlighted in red:

Looking closely we find that photo #2 is this Wikimedia photo of the Alamo, which clearly states that the copyright belongs to Daniel Schwen, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. There is no attribution given on Smith’s site though. Unless Congressman Smith has a license we’re not aware of, which seems unlikely, this is clearly another copyright violation. (I’ve reached out to Mr. Schwen for comment. ‘Will update once I hear back from him.)

Note, too, that #4 is this Hays County Courthouse photo, which a number of sources attribute to Terry Jeanson. All other sources I found contained a prominent attribution, and one clearly states copyright belongs to Ms. Jeanson. That no attribution is given on Congressman Smith’s site is a bit suspicious.

As for the remaining photos, I wasn’t able to track down their creators. #3 is in Fredericksburg though, and #5 would seem to be somewhere in Austin. If anyone has more info, please share in comments.