Imo it could also be copyright infringement, as it is a republication without permission – unless it falls under “fair dealing”.

Fortunately we all have control of our servers, so people can be served an advert for our services instead…or something else.

No fan of Guido, particularly his ‘for me but not for thee’ attitude to libel laws. However, the above is complete rubbish: image hot-linking is not theft in English law. (AIUI, iIt’s not even copyright infringement – and even if it were, copyright infringement is not theft).

As for whether it is bandwidth “stealing” – that all boils down to to what extent he had permission to use the animation. I also don’t know how your contractual relationship with C4 works and thus who he needed to ask for permission. Only you and C4 can answer that, not me, so I’ll take your word for it.

On you final point about a code of behaviour, I agree. There is a grey area between the sort of blogging I do, which is non-commercial (if only! although it has resulted in one paid job), the blogging Staines does, which he attempts to make as much money out of as possible (I have no idea how much and doubt it is a huge amount though, regardless of the holes in his braindead fanclub’s pockets) and the blogging you do which is non-commercial on the one hand but links directly to your day job.

It isn’t as binary as we might sometimes like to think and I wonder to what extent CC helps or hinders. It certainly warrants further debate. But regardless of who is to blame, Tim and Staines going hammer and tongs at each other is only going to generate heat, not light.

Why, if Paul Staines wasn’t feeling a little guilty about something he had done, did he immediately send a legal letter threatening to sue Tim Ireland for blogging about his use of bandwidth from third party servers (ie. not his?)

A simple apology and a removal of the’ hot link’ would have done.

In that instant legal letter Paul’s lawyer specifically talked about the embedding by Mr Staines of a photomontage cartoon produced by Matt Buck (me), the copyright for which vests in Channel 4 (“the Cartoon”), on his website – Order-Order.com. (or the Guido Fawkes blog).

The legal letter does not dispute the facts of what Tim Ireland blogged about. Specifically, that Paul Staines, clearly and demonstrably stole bandwidth. Instead it threatened Tim Ireland with legal proceedings for defamation of character.

The claim in the letter from Paul’s lawyer that copyright vests in C4 is factually incorrect. It is my copyright. Neither Paul or his lawyer bothered to check this very basic fact with me, or my employers at C4 before sending the letter. Why not?

When Paul published this statement on his blog.

> UPDATE 30 January 2008 : Seems that the humorous “Stolen from” reference has set someone off – for the record, Channel 4 News have given written permission for the occasional use of artwork on condition that they get a back-link.

The humorous reference to ’stolen’ is actually factual. It is ‘leeching’ or bandwidth theft.

The written permission he cites, refers specifically to an email and deals exclusively with the work of Beau Bo D’Or – not mine. I might not mind if he wanted to use my content, but it’s just that he’s never asked me…

If it is such a little affair, as you imply James, why bother getting a lawyer involved?

More generally, on your questions;

You can argue as you do, elegantly, we all benefit from this and perhaps we do. But as I have said on this blog before, some reasonable code of behaviour applies to the way we use the web, the images we like to see on it and how we make them appear in our publications.

Your last point about the NOW image is well made – some of us try to make our living through our skill at drawing and image making, we deserve as much respect in the way our work is treated as do those who type.

UPDATE 30 January 2008 : Seems that the humorous “Stolen from” reference has set someone off – for the record, Channel 4 News have given written permission for the occasional use of artwork on condition that they get a back-link.

Are you saying Channel 4 lack the authority to give him permission? That’s a different issue. But who is losing here? Both you and C4 get exposure out of it.

It doesn’t seem to compare with the “NOW” example at all where the image was lifted despite no credit given.

Great blog in general, by the way, really enjoyed looking through it, and will do so more regularly now