Senator Hatch, Software Pirate?
Published on June 19th, 2003 by J.T in BizarreFrom Wired:
Orrin Hatch: Software Pirate?
By Leander KahneySen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed.
But Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes.
The senator’s site makes extensive use of a JavaScript menu system developed by Milonic Solutions, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The copyright-protected code has not been licensed for use on Hatch’s website.
“It’s an unlicensed copy,” said Andy Woolley, who runs Milonic. “It’s very unfortunate for him because of those comments he made.”
…
When contacted Thursday, Woolley said the company that maintains the senator’s site had e-mailed Milonic to begin the registration process. Woolley said the code added to Hatch’s site after the issue came to light met some — but not all — of Milonic’s licensing requirements.
Before the site was updated, the source code on Hatch’s site contained the line: “* i am the license for the menu (duh) *”
Woolley said he had no idea where the line came from — it has nothing to do with him, and he hadn’t seen it on other websites that use his menu system.
“It looks like it’s trying to cover something up, as though they got a license,” he said.
…
The apparent violation was discovered by Laurence Simon, an unemployed system administrator from Houston, who was poking around Hatch’s site after becoming outraged by his comments.
Pot calling kettle black me thinks 
