Matt Buck's Hack Cartoons

An old problem has raised it's head again - people stealing your images and then passing them off as their own work.

One of my colleagues, Andy Davey, has found people 'borrowing' or stealing parts of his drawings for use in their photoshopped internet mash-ups. And they've been appearing on popular internet blog sites, such as Guido Fawkes and Ian Dale's Diary. The latest one turned up on Iain's diary over the weekend.

To be fair to Iain and Guido, both have sort-of apologised for using unattributed images, but there is a serious responsibility to check where artwork is coming from if you are going to publish it on the web.

Old media had to develop a system of employing artists and creators to help decorate their products, it would be nice to think that successful web sites could start to think about doing that too. After all, the visitor benefits are obvious - everybody likes drawings which are rude about politicians.

Perhaps one simple solution would be for all artwork posted to political blog sites like these to be signed - and noted with a URL - that way, we get to know who thinks what. And also, Andy would have some chance to track down the person who 'borrowed' his work.

There is an interesting exchange between my colleague Morten Morland and Iain Dale about this issue at the link below.

Face-off

Some of Andy Davey's borrowed belongings