The controversial SOPA bill is designed to combat online piracy and copyright violations. But now it turns out the bill's author and main sponsor, Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, has some copyright problems of his own.

Vice's Jamie Lee Curtis Taete did some investigative research into whether Smith's own campaign site was copyright Kosher. The photographic agency which produced the images used on Smith's current site told Taete it was "very difficult" for them to check if Smith has the rights to use those photos.

So Taete did some more digging, looking at older archived versions of Smith's campaign website. One former version of the representative's site used a picture of an idyllic backwoods scene which Taete traced to a photographer named DJ Schulte:

DJ Schulte said the photo was listed under Creative Commons and anyone could use it — provided they gave him due credit. But, according to Schulte, Smith's campaign made no effort to do so anywhere on his site.

"I do not see anywhere on the screen capture that you have provided that the image was attributed to the source (me)," wrote Schulte on his Flickr page.

"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 texansforlamarsmith.com."

Rep. Smith's campaign office was not immediately available for comment.

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, sjlocke ; Flickr, DJ Schulte