The Las Vegas Review-Journal, which has drawn interest and some criticism for its battle against websites that utilize its content without permission, finally took a shot at its favorite Senatorial candidate: Sharron Angle.

The newspaper reported that the Review-Journal, and its partner in the online copyright battle, Righthaven LLC, filed suit Sept. 3 against Angle's campaign for repurposing two Review-Journal stories. The suit seeks $150,000 in damages for two pieces that were posted at Angle's SharronAngle.com site.

The story states:

A Las Vegas-based company filed a federal lawsuit Friday that accuses U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle of reprinting two Review-Journal articles on her campaign website without permission.

The limited liability company, Righthaven, has filed dozens of similar copyright infringement cases since it was established earlier this year.

“Righthaven LLC vigorously enforces the copyrighted work of Review-Journal reporters, columnists and editors,” said Mark Hinueber, the newspaper's vice president and general counsel. “We expect everyone to comply with the copyright laws of the United States. It is never appropriate to utilize entire Review-Journal articles or columns without prior, express written permission of the newspaper.”

Jerrod Agen, communications director for Angle, said he would not comment on the lawsuit until the campaign's lawyers have reviewed it.

PoliticsDaily reported on the move, asking if the Review-Journal will maintain its endorsement support of Angle and disclose the lawsuit in its reporting given she has allegedly broken the law:

Whatever its motive, the Review-Journal has placed itself in journalistically uncharted territory. No political or media experts I contacted could recall a mainstream newspaper ever suing a major-party candidate in the heat of a hotly contested election campaign. University of Nevada at Las Vegas journalism professor Mary Hausch says the paper owes it to its readers now disclose the lawsuit in each story about the Angle-Reid race. So far, it has not done so.

“There's so much drama in the R-J newsroom over this race and how to maintain any credibility for the newspaper when it's all over,” said Hausch, a former managing editor at the R-J. “When you have the publisher working day by day to take down [Harry] Reid and speaking to Republican groups on the one hand, and then the paper sues the candidate that you think the publisher supports on the other, it's getting crazy. If the R-J is going to start to disclose in the U.S. Senate race, the disclosure might be as long as the story.”